Her time has come
As the wife of a renowned painter and sister to famous brothers who have scored high notes in the field of music, Plet Bolipata Borlongan bears names that are brands. You see “Borlongan” on canvas and you know you’re beholding a masterpiece. You hear “Bolipata” and you hear the sound of music.
And yet, like her vivid paintings, Plet stands out. She’s a B+ (Bolipata + Borlongan) that’s an A.
Until March 31 at Vetted in Makati, Plet Bolipata’s renderings of childhood nostalgia, New York memories, and surreal fantasies will be on show in her one-woman exhibition titled “The time has come,” BOLIPATA said, “to talk of many things.”
From New York to Zambales, Plet explores Posca acrylic markers and lithography in a body of work shaped by New York and rooted in Zambales. Posca markers are high-quality, water-based acrylic paint markers popular for art, graffiti, and crafting.
How is it like to be married to the Elmer Borlongan? Does professional jealousy have room in the Bolipata-Borlongan household? Did their paintbrushes ever duel artistically?
“Rivalry? Jealousies about our art? From me, a lot in the early stages of marriage...but somehow, all weathered by time. Acceptance of each other’s strengths and weaknesses allowed us to map out our individual careers. In the end, what was important to us was what we could achieve together,” says Plet of the harmony in their marriage.
It was not her husband, nor her brothers, who inspired her to be a painter. Plet was a computer systems engineer and one visit to her uncle Federico Aguilar Alcuaz’ studio changed the course of her career.
(Alcuaz was conferred the title of National Artist for Visual Arts, Painting, Sculpture and Mixed Media in 2009.)
“It changed the course of my career because the escape to New York gave me a lot of alone time to focus on my work—work on my drawing skills, indulge in lithography, and sort out what truly matters to me in terms of my art. It allowed me to be fully engaged with my quiet thoughts, my surroundings and what truly stirs my soul without the busy-ness of managing a household and construction,” she shares.
“Since he is an uncle by affinity, (his sister married my mom’s brother), he was easy to talk to. He laughed out loud, I think more like because he was taken aback from my statement when I blurted , ‘Tito, I am a painter. That’s who I am.’ It was said with so much clarity and conviction.”
Plet says Alcuaz was truly supportive and would come to her show openings and even open a couple of her exhibits. When she came back from New York, he even acquired one of her big works of a subway scene.
NYC revisted
It was just last year when an unplanned trip to New York lit a creative spark in the artist, who returned to a city much changed from her last visit more than three decades ago. It is there where she honed her painting and drawing skills at the Art Students League of New York back in 1992. Despite the changes, Plet felt that the restless energy remained—and it stirred something in her.
While in New York, she also returned to the Art Students League to study lithography, expanding her practice even as she explored the city. If Posca allowed for speed and spontaneity, lithography demanded patience, stamina, and precision. Working directly on stone required certainty in every mark—a contrast that sharpened her focus and deepened her craft.
For the show, she gathered the images she created during this period: vivid Posca works, accordion-fold art books, and lithograph prints. Interwoven are pieces drawn from memory and imagination. Three canvases revisit her childhood, growing up alongside musically-gifted siblings and brilliant sisters. A trio of oval works, framed in patterned fabric of her choosing, envisions a parallel life with Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera—a reflection on womanhood, artistic partnership, fertility, and the complexities of standing beside a celebrated spouse.
Though the narratives shift between city scenes, personal history, and imagined worlds, vibrant palette remains constant. Color serves as her emotional compass: blue lifting her upward, orange keeping her grounded.
The color scheme, the purple-orange complementary palette in one painting, the sensual reclining figures and figures that feel mythic rather than realistic in Plet’s paintings remind me of Gaugin. Gaugin was known for his vivid colors and Symbolist themes.
But Plet is as unique as her own work. She is the only computer engineer by training among her siblings but is introduced as the painter in the family.
In 2008, her sister Rica Bolipata-Santos wrote an article explaining how it was like then in the Bolipata home in Zambales.
“Let me introduce us the way our parents would: there is Jed, the pianist; Chino, the cellist; Plet, the painter; Coke, the violinist; Non the lawyer; and then me, the writer. I never knew how unusual this manner of introduction was until only recently when my husband pointed out that in his family, people were introduced only by names plus order of birth, and not by the choices they had made of what it is they do in life.”
So Plet the painter’s time has come.
Viewed as a whole, the exhibition captures an artist stepping confidently into the light she has always claimed as her own.
As she told Alcuaz 30 years ago, “I am a painter. That’s who I am.”
“The time has come,” BOLIPATA said, “to talk of many things.” runs from March 14 to 31 with viewing hours from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m., Mondays to Fridays, at Vetted, Unit 126, Mile Long building, Amorsolo Street corner V. Rufino Street, Makati City. For inquiries, call 0917-5262339.
