Women artists, digital animation and performance art: Art Fair Philippines sets the bar high this 2026

For the ninth year of the 10 Days of Art initiative, which begins on January 30, there will be a series of events scattered throughout the Makati Central Business District, leading all the way to Circuit Makati. Esteemed milliner Mich Dulce will have her show, Nagsasalitang Ulo, at Greenbelt 5 Gallery, alongside storyteller and designer Joel Wijangco with his Art 2 Wear show. Photography collective Fotomoto PH once again transforms the Paseo Underpass with their spread of evocative photographs. Alfredo and Isabel Aquilizan will have their show, Signs and Intimations, at the Ayala Tower One’s fountain area. Ronald Ventura’s famous whimsical Carousel sculptural work will once again be available for the public to engage with at the Ayala Malls Circuit. Enveloping key landmarks in Makati, such as One Ayala Mall Terminal, Glorietta 4 Cinema, Glorietta Activity Center, Greenbelt 4 and Ayala Malls Circuit, are the alluring digital artworks of Isaiah Cacnio, collectively titled Magkahiwalay, Magkaugnay. Furthermore, art lovers are invited to visit the show openings at participating galleries’ locations from January 30 to February 1, which comprise Art Fair Philippines’ Gallery Weekend.

As we anticipate this year’s edition of Art Fair Philippines, here’s a list of artists you shouldn’t miss checking out at the Projects section.

Imelda Cajipe Endaya is a preeminent Filipino visual artist, printmaker and activist, known for her pivotal role in contemporary Philippine art and feminism. Her career, spanning over five decades, is characterised by a deep integration of social realism, historical research and a distinctly womanly visual language expressed through her imagery and selected media. In 1987, she co-founded Kasibulan, an influential women’s artist collective that provided a platform for female artists in a male-dominated scene and elevated traditional crafts to the status of high art. Her honours include the CCP Thirteen Artists Award (1991), the Centennial Honors for the Arts (1999) and the Ani ng Dangal (2009).

Read more: Herstory of Kasibulan, a sisterhood of women artists

Recognised for her mastery of printmaking, particularly woodcut, Ambie Abaño rose to prominence with her innovative multidisciplinary approach that bridges traditional techniques with sculpture and installation. Originally trained as an architect, Abaño shifted her focus to the visual arts, developing a career that emphasises the physical and conceptual layers of her chosen media. She is widely known for large-scale woodcuts where she treats the carved wood blocks as sculptures themselves. She often prints on non-traditional malleable surfaces such as spandex, lace, rubber and quilted upholstery. Her work frequently explores self-reflection, identity and the female gaze.

Max Balatbat is a highly acclaimed Filipino contemporary artist known for his architectural abstraction, a style that blends the precision of his architectural training with the gritty, vibrant realities of urban Philippine life. His process is tactile and labour-intensive. He often cooks paint until it solidifies, then cuts it into shapes to apply to the canvas. His materials include acrylic skin, rope, cement, burlap and resin, reflecting the patchwork (barong-barong) nature of informal settlements. His work frequently centres on the Avenida (a historic Manila thoroughfare) and the red-light districts of Caloocan. He explores the intersection of the sacred and the profane, documenting the lives of invisible society members—such as vendors, labourers and prostitutes—with empathy and a lack of didactic judgment.

One of the most pivotal figures in abstract art is Constancio Bernardo, a favoured student of Fernando Amorsolo who later ventured into abstraction after studying in the United States. Bernardo’s early career was rooted in the classical tradition, with a promising career in continuing genre painting. When he entered Yale University, he was mentored by the legendary Bauhaus master Josef Albers. Under his guidance, Bernardo abandoned representation in favour of rigorous colour theory and geometric structures.

Brenda Fajardo was a multi-faceted Filipino visual artist, printmaker and educator. Her career is distinguished by a profound commitment to folk culture, social realism and the empowerment of women, often merging the mystical with the socio-political. Fajardo was best known for her pioneering use of Tarot cards as a framework for historical and social narratives. In this seminal series, she reimagined the traditional Tarot deck to be read as a critique to Philippine history. Together with Cajipe Endaya, she co-founded Kasibulan.

Filipino-American mixed media and textile artist Ged Unson Mariño has a career defined by an exploration of objects, memory and the “archiving of sentimentality” through the use of discarded materials and textiles. His work is deeply rooted in the concept of migration and settlement. He collects objects that have been discarded—intentionally or incidentally—and incorporates them into his art to weave together biography and art history. He is a pioneer in contemporary textile and thread art, often using fabric, yarn and scrap textiles to create soft sculptures and immersive installations. He views his process as a way of “threading memories” of relationships, places and objects. His work often addresses the historical incongruence between lived experience and what is remembered.

Jon and Tessy Pettyjohn are widely recognised as the pioneers and central figures of contemporary studio pottery in the Philippines. For over 40 years, they have bridged the gap between traditional folk pottery and contemporary ceramic art, establishing a sophisticated visual language that blends Asian aesthetics with indigenous Filipino materials. The Pettyjohns operate from their workshop, Pansol Pottery, located at the foot of Mt Makiling in Laguna. Their work is a constant dialogue between function and sculpture. The Pettyjohns are celebrated for their alchemy—the scientific and artistic process of creating their own glazes and clay bodies.

Founded in 2020 by curator Anna Bernice delos Reyes and artist Augustine Paredes, Sa Tahanan Co. is a contemporary arts collective based in the United Arab Emirates, which serves as a vital platform for Filipino creatives across the Gulf and the global diaspora. The collective was born during the pandemic, initially as a response to the devastation of Typhoon Ulysses (Goni) in the Philippines. Its founders sought to create a space that disrupted Western-centric art narratives and addressed the accessibility gap for Filipino artists in the Middle East. The name is a play on the Tagalog phrase sa tahanan ko (“in my home”). It draws from the root word tahan, which means to stop crying or find comfort, reflecting the collective’s role as a site of respite and endurance for migrant bodies. Its mission is to facilitate diasporic representation, using art to explore themes of migration, memory, longing and the invisible narratives of Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs).

Solomon Saprid was a master of modern Philippine sculpture, best known for his brutalist style of metalworking and his iconic depictions of Philippine folklore. His career was marked by a shift from illustration to a unique form of expressionist sculpture. Saprid is celebrated for his anti-classical approach to sculpture. He developed a signature technique using a blowtorch to weld together shards and strips of metal (chiefly bronze and brass). The welding process created jagged seams and craggy textures that he used to capture what he called frozen motion. This style suggests arrested energy and kinetic grace rather than static poses. His works are often airy or hollow, utilising the space between metal strips to allow light and air to weave through the figure, giving heavy metal a sense of lightness and life.

Romeo Tabuena was a world-renowned Filipino painter and printmaker, celebrated as one of the pioneering figures in the Philippine neo-realist movement. His career is defined by a unique fusion of Filipino roots and Mexican artistic traditions, spanning six decades and multiple continents. Tabuena’s multidisciplinary background influenced the structured yet fluid nature of his art. He studied architecture at the Mapúa Institute of Technology and painting at the University of the Philippines. In the early 1950s, he expanded his horizons at the Art Students League of New York and the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris. Before his move abroad, he was a key figure in the Philippine Art Gallery (PAG) circle. In 1955, Tabuena settled in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, a move that radically transformed his visual language while he famously retained his Philippine citizenship throughout his life. Early in his career, he developed a style characterised by translucent, jewel-toned washes and interlocking cubist shapes. His favourite subjects included nipa huts, carabaos (water buffalo), and ethereal landscapes reminiscent of Chinese vertical paintings. Influenced by the Mexican school of art (specifically Rufino Tamayo and Diego Rivera), his later work became more opaque and prismatic. He began depicting common Mexican folk—street vendors, laundry women and candle sellers—using vibrant colours and a stylised, geometric quality.

In partnership with Instituto Cervantes and the Embassy of Spain in the Philippines, Art Fair Philippines is bringing in Ampparito, a prominent Spanish contemporary artist from Madrid known for his subversive approach to reality, using large-scale murals and urban interventions to challenge the function and meaning of everyday objects. Ampparito is known for site-specific works that utilise irony, humour and social criticism. His signature style involves taking ubiquitous objects—such as a pen cap, a metro ticket or a match—and enlarging or displacing them to invite reflection. Early in his practice, he manipulated advertisements in public spaces to challenge corporate messaging. He intentionally simplifies complex ideas so that the audience can form their own opinions. His work aims to provoke a range of reactions, “from absolute indifference to deepest reflection,” as described by the international publication Street Art News.

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