These women creatives are blazing new trails and taking up space in contemporary art, design, and culture
Now that the dust has finally begun to settle after an incredibly frantic and packed first quarter of 2024 marked by ALT Philippines, Art Fair Philippines, Art in the Park, and Xavier Art Fest in Metro Manila; Art SG and S.E.A. Focus in Singapore, and Art Basel and Art Central in Hong Kong, we can now collectively take a well-deserved breather as we enter the second quarter of the year.
As we wrap up the first quarter of 2024, LIFESTYLE.INQ wishes to celebrate some of the most promising and important women artists, curators, designers, and art educators who have collectively made the Philippine and Filipino diaspora contemporary art and design communities deeply vibrant and meaningful, and massively inspired and empowered.
In no particular order, here are 30 of the most exciting women creatives who are blazing new trails and taking up space in contemporary art, design, and culture today.
Nicole Coson, London-based Filipina visual artist
“In my work I aim to engage with visibility and disappearance through experimenting with paradoxical methods and materials to simultaneously evoke a state of entanglement and escape in the viewer. Through a practice involving sculpture, analogue printmaking techniques, and painting, combined with the use of everyday objects, I aim to reconfigure our experience of the world and present new perspectives. My solo show titled ‘In Passing’ is currently on view in Silverlens Gallery’s New York space.”
READ MORE: ‘The personal is global,’ says Nicole Coson in latest New York exhibit
Patricia Perez Eustaquio, visual artist and fashion designer
“For 2024 onwards, I’d like to pursue things that I feel will really enrich me and stretch the limits of where I feel comfortable working. For the Encounters section of Art Basel Hong Kong, I worked on my largest ever tapestry and soon I will be working on more for my show for Silverlens New York.”
Nona Garcia, visual artist
“With an art practice that spans two decades, Nona Garcia continues to be recognized as one of the most prolific artists who paints after the photographic image. Through a remarkable merging of subject, style, and concept, her compositions unceasingly generate images that situate viewers within the vague yet monumental aspirations of the real—all culled from her immediate surroundings and encounters—where the poignant, emblematic, and personal moment becomes shared epiphanies through her paintings.”—Cocoy Lumbao Jr. on Nona Garcia
Pam Yan Santos, visual artist
“My works have always been a reflection of what I go through personally as a daughter, a mother, a wife, and as a person. This collection of experiences will continue to inform the works that I will be doing in the coming months—be it painting, printmaking, sculptures or installations… as life unfolds for me so follows my art.”
Maria Taniguchi, visual artist
“I have a solo show with MCAD (Benilde), which I am really excited about. It will be at the end of the year. A solo show at a Philippine institution after 10 years!”
Anna Jewsbury of Completedworks, London-based British-Filipina jewelry and fashion designer
“The vision is to create beautiful and enduring pieces that we hope will ultimately change the cultural landscape in some small positive way. There’s always a consideration for materials at the forefront too—with each collection we are working to prioritize recycled, upcycled, and renewable materials across everything we do.”
Isabel Aquilizan, Brisbane- and Los Baños-based Filipina visual artist
“Alfredo Juan and Isabel Aquilizan work together as a couple, parents, and artists. Though they pursue individual creative vocations, their collaborations dwell on their everyday life within a family of five children. The duty of raising them and the intimacy of ensuring their well-being have come to inflect their work with collective habits, or habits of collection—and also of belonging…. Isabel Aquilizan is a teacher and artist of the performing arts. She is a director and actress. Her engagement with the process of performance and its inherent collaborative possibilities has led her to work with her husband in installations that cross gaps between media and distances. Her role as a mother of five children enables her to intervene in recreating the art of installation as home or habitat that is sustained by housekeeping, child rearing, nurturing, and the collecting of memories.”—Art Front Gallery on Isabel Aquilizan
“I am always in love with installation works. What I do love about her (and their) work is scale. Scale is content and context. And how scale shifts in the work. The works are made of very intricate, petite ‘buildings’ and scale shifts by the amount of these ‘buildings’ not by shifting the size of the ‘building.’ It’s wonderment, it’s claustrophobic, it’s muted (through color and material) and loud (through gestalt) all at the same time.”—Kelli Maeshiro, Manila-based Japanese American visual artist, on Isabel Aquilizan
Gabbie Sarenas, fashion designer
“‘A Love Letter to the Philippines’ is what the brand and I hold near and dear whenever we make clothes and other pieces. We value works of the hand and that’s something we consistently do now and tomorrow. We will continuously explore other territories excitedly with all of these in mind.”
Geraldine Javier, visual artist
“Geraldine Javier’s latest body of work expanded to eco dyeing using plants in her farm and garden. Her long-term investigations on evolution and the natural world have become increasingly symbiotic, working with nature itself as material for art making. Through her artistic projects, she continues to empower her local community, developing their skills in embroidery and other modes of creativity.”—Stephanie Frondoso on Geraldine Javier
Elaine Roberto Navas, Singapore-based Filipina visual artist
“For this year it is a privilege to be invited by fellow artists to be part of their group shows and collaborations. Art making is not that lonely when there is a beloved community that sees me and wishes that I be part of it. I look forward to learning more and being courageous.”—Elaine Roberto Navas
“I have always been riveted by moments that give me peace, deep peace that calms my spirit. Elaine Roberto Navas’ paintings brought me to a different space, an inner space of expansiveness and serenity. Standing before her seascapes, I feel as if I am alone within her pictorial space, hearing nothing but the sound of waves crashing and feeling nothing but the gentle breeze. Her brushwork is sensuous, nuanced, and complex. Each stroke bears a gradient of at least four hues. Each brushstroke is like a lyric of a song, a word in a poem, a mark of woman’s hand that dared to share to the world a piece of her heart.”—Goldwin Manuel, contemporary art collector, on Elaine Roberto Navas
Ayka Go, visual artist
“Now that I am in my 30s, having my youth behind me, I feel as if a new leaf has sprouted. Previous works have always been childlike whether it may be in terms of approach, process, and/or themes. Now, I am exploring my womanhood—my unique story as a woman, as Ayka Go. I feel like ever since I was young, I have always enjoyed working with my hands. I have and will always enjoy painting. But now, I’m even more drawn to exploring new media.”
READ MORE: Gallery List: Roll into Your New Year Routine With These Art Exhibitions
Celine Lee, visual artist
“Though I’ve been exhibiting with local galleries since 2016, I’m still enthusiastic about working with a few more that I haven’t worked with yet. This November, I’ll be creating/showing small works for Golden Cargo Gallery. I’m also looking into artistic collaborations and working with institutions for the next consecutive years.”
Mona Santos, visual artist and gallerist
“Not really retiring but am very careful in accepting exhibitions, as I can not physically work as much as I used to. I also got into gardening during the pandemic. For 2024, I am just joining a few group exhibitions and trying to pace myself so that I can enjoy the process of painting and familiarizing myself with new materials.”
Elo Quiambao, president of Navitas Learning Haus, generation builder, and creative
“We would hear ourselves say, ‘Think out of the box.’ But years ago I came across the line, ‘Does it even have to be a box?’
This has stuck with me ever since. As an educator, I am thankful for all the good things that a good educational system has given us all. I have been a thankful recipient of my master’s degree in the University of the Philippines as well as the short but impactful professional courses I have gained from the Nanyang Institute of Education in Singapore and the Harvard Graduate School of Education in Cambridge. Yet grateful as I have been, I have also always wanted to explore beyond the system. We know that humans can be compliant and excellent followers. But what if we can keep tapping on to that trait of ours which is to keep asking ‘what if” questions, to wonder, to imagine new possibilities or put together new combinations for the sake of growth, in the name of discovering that very unique fire within, to feel more alive and have the courage to keep living and creating not according to how society dictates on us to do so but on the basis of that internal joy and meaning in experiencing and creating things?
This is the reason my team and I put up Navitas in Poblacion, Makati.
We are educators no longer trying to aim at certifications and institutional standards. They are good and they have their rightful place. But Navitas is pursuing learning experiences in a way that now focuses on personal joy and meaning and even organic learning that beautifully sits on every unique family context. Learning can be the fruit of attending an institution but what if life, at every stage, is seen as one big, never-ending school? What if we see life itself as one learning adventure after another?”
Sarah de Veyra-Buyco, art program director of Navitas Learning Haus, art educator, and visual artist
“As an artist, I am excited to explore more the magnificence of the natural world through pencil drawings, light boxes, and video installations. For this year, I want to explore further animated and holographic collaborations with my husband. I will also be quite busy preparing for scheduled shows next year.
As an art teacher, for this year, it will be my joy to welcome everyone to Auntie’s Artnest by Navitas and through it engage a community that shares the joy of creating. I wish to meet children and adults, learn together, create with them, and be inspired by them.”
Monica Delgado, New York City-based Filipina visual artist
“I envision exploring my work deeper this year by combining processes and integrating multiple bodies of work into a single piece, varying my main element repetition a little more. I would like to delve further in pushing the boundaries, even more, of the perceived limits of painting and what can be done with paint.
My work trajectory in 2024 started out with a solo show in Artinformal Gallery and participation in the ALT 2024 art fair in February. In April, I will be participating at San Francisco Art Market, followed by the Seattle Art Fair in July, and Art Miami in December, all with Maybaum Gallery in the US.”—Monica Delgado
“Exploring the literal materiality of paint itself, Monica Delgado created paint tubes out of paint, recreating their shapes, down to a solitary drip. Countless rows of dried and stripped paint, arranged in an impossibly logical manner to create texture, image, and pattern, explode onto the viewer powerfully. The amazing thing is the arc she has taken her concept: different yet the same. All mesmerizing.”—Ayi Magpayo, contemporary art collector, on Monica Delgado
Olive Jaro Lopez, fiber artist, and full-time faculty in the fashion design and merchandising program at the De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde
“I had a corporate experience in textile design, having worked in both New York and Los Angeles where I analyzed the scientific properties and various functions of textile materials, as well as their marketability. With a master’s degree in textile design and double degrees in statistics and fine arts major in painting from the University of the Philippines Diliman and as a scholar at the University of the Arts London Chelsea College of Arts, I was afforded greater autonomy to investigate the artistic potential of textile as a medium.
It’s not easy to go back and pursue textile art in our country because it’s still new and developing; however, there remains a glimmer of optimism regarding the appreciation of this art form, which stems from our affiliation with strong creative collectives of artisans as well as the abundant availability of local natural materials, which offers promising prospects for the development of textile art. Furthermore, by teaching textile art and design, this fortifies the next generation of aspiring textile artists as they ascend to the status of nationally or internationally renowned artists, whose art may have lasting value, contributing to our Filipino textile heritage.”
Janice Liuson-Young, visual artist, art educator, and associate dean of the FEATI School of Fine Arts
“For 2024, I’d like to continue jaywalking across genres and styles. I believe that only if an artist is courageous enough to move outside the lines and brave the chaos will she be able to live her art fully. That’s also what I want to teach our students at the FEATI School of Fine Arts Department—artists need to step out of their comfort zone and onto the unmarked road. Nothing else will bring us home.”
MM Yu, visual artist
“In MM Yu’s ‘drip paintings,’ process is also favored above expression. And as a kind of abstract work, it is one that is rooted in determinacy: of exactness and unequivocal necessity—that the line of color will be drawn to none other than the field where it was directed. And the lines make their own stops, curls, and turns. It generates its own rhythm; it unfolds its own narrative. The accumulated pattern becomes the subject-in-itself. And the artist, a detached composer, wagers her intuition in an attempt to redefine what we used to perceive as composition in painting. This single-mindedness and singular, focused objective of letting paint drip—however seemingly meek the process may be—in fact denounces stubborn assumptions about what is ‘subject’ in painting.”—Cocoy Lumbao Jr. on MM Yu
“Mm Yu’s work has this quality of materiality—like how her photographs act as a double of reality. I like how the images feel real and candid; witty, and composed.”—Miguel Lorenzo Uy, visual artist, on MM Yu
Valerie Chua, visual artist
“This 2024, I’m participating in a few exhibitions lined up in Manila and Osaka. Since I just gave birth, I’m mostly excited about how my work output would transform, allowing me to embrace the unpredictable and uncontrollable aspects of motherhood with new insight. While my heart remains loyal to representational works on canvas, I am envisioning a shift towards a more fluid and experimental body of work, veering away from my current, more academic approach.”
READ MORE: Gallery List: Celebrate Work by Women in the Art World this November
Stephanie Frondoso, curator, visual artist, and art writer
“I will continue to champion culturally relevant but difficult-to-sell work, including photography and other mediums often marginalized in the art market. I will also deepen my curatorial work in regions outside of the capital, believing in the courageous artistic talent that spring forth throughout the archipelago. Most importantly, I will further my involvement with public programs aimed at art education, appreciation, and critical discourse.”
Veronica Lazo, visual artist, industrial designer, and art educator
“I view my works as commentaries that re-evaluate how civilization interacts with nature, and as proposals for the possibilities that could arise from exploring these complexities. I find myself reimagining the intersections of industry, technology, craft, and the organic as a way to challenge dominant ecosystems.”
Kelli Maeshiro, Manila-based Japanese-American visual artist
“I usually plan my year years out, therefore I planned for this year to be a year of experimentation and exploration in the studio. To play and to invent. And to come out from this year with new installation work for 2025. In terms of experimentation, it refers to the research of new materials. My work uses synthetic materials to create a delicate, melodic environment. And the research into materials and their processes is an ongoing project from late 2019.”
Carina Santos, London-based visual artist and art writer
“My process isn’t really intentional; my paintings are very gestural and come from play. I’m not very good at deliberate planning, so my practice is in a constant state of unfolding. The mountains and landscapes came about almost by accident, but that is what my mind and my body gravitate towards. Lately, I have been preoccupied by ideas of distance and kind of belonging in an in-between, liminal space, having lived in another country for over six years, and the feelings evoked by these paintings as well as the ideas that I keep coming back to are somehow embodied in them.
I’d like to believe that everything we do, consume, and experience all add up to an ending. Rather than looking at my work as the result of planning and calculation, I like to think that it’s the culmination of everything I do and am, and an image of the state of my practice as it stands.
Part of my research interests is translation and how the lack of direct translations—where one has to refer to a different thing to make sense of another thing—created what Jacques Derrida called ‘Différance,’ or ‘an endless chain of signifiers.’ We can never arrive at exact meanings for things, and we defer to what we know, trying to create these explanations, to varying degrees of success.
I hope these explorations of new media create translations that, while not necessarily providing direct meaning, allow for these ideas to be perceived and processed in a different way.”
Julieanne Ng, visual artist
“Rather than simply using incense sticks to burn holes through the paper, I want to further study and explore cast shadows as an aspect of my work and not merely an effect caused by the incense burn. I’m curious to see what visual language will emerge if I use a different material in my future projects.”
Is Jumalon, visual artist
“As an artist, I aim to constantly amuse myself and evolve my process. I’m interested in images that challenge the capacity of the viewer’s perception by presenting them with a picture that is somewhat vague yet strangely familiar. And from that familiarity, I invite them to a subjective mental process of piecing together the images.”
Isabel Santos of The Learning Lab, cultural worker and visual artist
“For 2024, I’m excited about the new possibilities for me, not just as a visual artist but for the nanays in the lab. As a visual artist, I’m currently exploring new mediums; and, with my work with the nanays, fabric seems to be one of them. We are opening doors for each other.”
READ MORE: Art roundtable: The role of women artists in abstract art
Gwen Bautista of Mono8, curator
“For 2024, our team at Mono8 is working towards more growth for our platform through the recalibration of our programs. While we are a commercial gallery, we’re trying to follow a sustainable community-centric framework, which is a slow and painful process. This means that most of our income sustains our full-on exhibition productions, workshops, residencies, and international collaborations, all to the best of our ability in working together as a team with artists, patrons, and collaborators.
We want to contribute to the inclusive growth of the art ecosystem. When we think about the art world, many words like ‘community building’ and ‘care’ get thrown out a lot. Still, we strive daily to realize these promises and goals by finding better ways to present better profit-sharing systems between the gallery, artists, and collaborators. We also maintain fair working arrangements and compensation for our team in Manila and Cebu.
In addition, we want to introduce discussions on the art market and the economics behind this industry to push for better models, and produce more art publications. I’m sure that it won’t be all dandy, and there will be days when we will make mistakes and disappoint, but we shouldn’t be short-sighted. We have to remember that working in this field, we are inheriting a system with structures that may not always be to our advantage as an emerging platform with limited resources, but we’ll commit to trying our best in all the ways we know and everything that we have.”
Francesca Balaguer-Mercado, fiber artist
“For 2024, I’d like to revisit my love for photography and learn more about experimental processes. I’m excited to tie in whatever I gain from this exploration with my existing fiber art. I hope that my art will lead me to connect, collaborate, and be inspired by fellow creatives that share the same values and faith.”
Chloe Magpayo of Empty Scholar, curator
“My aim is to push boundaries through our curator collective, Empty Scholar, and other personal projects slated this year and early 2025. I’m focused on forging new partnerships with galleries, artists, and other creative spaces, aiming to enable fresh and engaging conversations between audiences and artists. Nurturing these partnerships will amplify diverse voices through what I hope will be exhibitions that reflect how my generation views and appreciates the Filipino contemporary art scene. As a curator, I collaborate with artists on focused and conceptual themes and push them to explore new and unexpected materials while staying grounded in their artistic identities.”
