The Manila’bang 2021 Show: Artfest International

Galerie Roberto proudly announces the opening of the "Manila’Bang Show: ArtFest International" from Dec. 8-12, 2021. This event is a partnership with Artsper Europe and Art Moments Jakarta.

With over 170 leading contemporary artists in the Philippines and around the globe (Vietnam, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Thailand, Ireland, Spain, Brazil, Netherlands, Australia, Germany, Serbia, Bangladesh and India), the exhibition is spearheaded by Filipino artist Reynold Dela Cruz.

The fest takes place at a premium 2,000-sqm space at Festival Mall, Civic Drive, Alabang, Muntinlupa City. The Manila’Bang 2021 Show: ArtFest International accents works by diverse contemporary artists based on local and international localities.

As Alain Zedrick Camiling, artistic director of the Manila’Bang 2021 Show, shares: “Central to the idea of the fest is ‘the animate proof of life,’ a phrase lifted from Linda Pastan’s 2011 literary collection, ‘Traveling Light,’ which untangles the transitory qualities of the mundane with everything being temporary and characterized by ephemerality suggestive of growth, aging and loss.”

Moreover, the exhibition is complemented by a series of “#ArtTalks” given by the following speakers: Sandra Palomar-Quan, John Alexis Balaguer, Dr. Katherine Anne Correa, Mayumi Hirano, Renan Laru-an, Gian Carlo Delgado, Prof. Amos Manlangit and Dr. Lorelei R. Vinluan, RGC. (Register at:www.galerieroberto.com.)

For more inquiries, contact Galerie Roberto (02) 8-809-1619. Viber: 0905-314-6448.

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Get to know the artists and their works:

Special shows:

Romulo Galicano

Born in Carcar, Cebu — which has emerged as the country’s wellspring of Realism — our most renowned Realist painter, Romulo Galicano, pursues the theme of the Battle of Mactan, as a nod to the quincentennial celebration of Christianity in the Philippines.

Orley Ypon

Also Cebuano-born, hailing from the City of Toledo, Orley Ypon first gained national prominence with his unexpected and disturbing subject of “Taong Putik.” Ypon celebrates the simple pleasures and contentment of provincial life, taking visual pleasure in the bliss of the countryside.

Robert Besana

Working in a highly realist manner, Robert Besana explores existential queries that invariably delve into the themes of mortality and spirituality but with strong resonances of a contemporary allegorical context.

Nunelucio Alvarado

A Social Realist to the core, Nunelucio Alvarado, in his large body of work, has unremittingly trained his eye on the inequality in the social condition of a specific region: Negros Occidental.

Brian Uhing and S-Ann Ch’i

A happily married couple, Brian Uhing and S-Ann Ch’I work in artistic styles that could not have been more contrasting: a classical approach emulating the Old Masters and a painterly Abstract Expressionist technique, reminiscent of Jackson Pollock.

Solo exhibitions:

Ram Mallari

No more spectacular demonstration is there of turning trash into treasure than the sculptures of Ram Mallari. He is a pioneer of the so-called “Steampunk Art” movement in the country, a vision of “what the past would be like if the future had come before.”

Ferdinand Cacnio

Beyond being a painter and a graphic designer, Ferdinand Cacnio is a sculptor of a different aesthetic persuasion. His works are now identified with the swirling brass sheets that embody the presence of graceful and lithe dancers.

Anton Del Castillo

The art of Anton Del Castillo is a bristling and lacerating critique of contemporary life. Through his trademark imagery of the gas mask, the artist conveys the precarious situation of modern man, exposed to all harmful gases and contaminants.

Marge Organo

In her ManilaBang 2021 solo exhibition, “Sand and Fire,” Organo unveils spectacular works that consistently reveal her increasing mastery of glass sculpture. She studied at the Corning Museum of Glass in New York.

Julius Redillas

“Prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet.” Thus intoned the great poet T.S. Eliot. Julius Redillas conjures the vertical format of traditional portraiture with the visage totally slipped off and scraped out, replaced by the macabre likeness of the Self.

Christian Tamondong

Seeing no conflict in his exploration of diverse images, Christian Tamondong finds his freedom in the graphic gesture, comic-drawn figures and beasts, familiar and mythical characters, geometry gone haywire, fantastical dreams, zoological signs, birds in block-forms, appropriations of Disney icons, and the tossed-in typography.

Rene Cuvos

The world of Rene Cuvos is deceptively enchanting, summoning our guile to a fabled universe, reminiscent of illustrated children’s books and animated movies.

Notable artists:

Made Palguna (Indonesia)

The art of Made Palguna borders between a calculated naif expression and an urbane view of the world.

Ng Bee (Malaysia)

A native of Selangor, Ng Bee is regarded as their country’s first surrealist artist, and is among their finest contemporary artists.

Ng Kim Keoh (Malaysia)

With her mirage of floating apples, a bird and a thermos flask, Ng Kim Keoh recasts our conventional impression of the still life.

Minh Meo Mieng (Vietnam)

Behind a façade of innocence and humor, Minh Meo Mieng deplores the ills and laments of his country, still reeling from the trauma of war: freedom of expression, migration, and the vulnerabilities of the Vietnamese society.

Gala Caki (Serbia)

A Serbian artist who has spent a lot of time in Asia, Gala Caki has expanded her view of humanity, appreciating the spirituality inherent in the region.

Tiny Nuyda

A pillar of modern art and a co-founder of the legendary Saturday Group, Justin “Tiny” Nuyda rose from the ashes of a serious health crisis, and with his veritable second lease on life, Nuyda painted for all the tomorrows to come, thus imbuing his finely sensitive billowing brushstrokes with a fresh, spring-like effulgence.

Toti Cerda

Proclaimed primus inter pares — first among equals — in a national watercolor competition, Toti Cerda has widened the range of his themes, scouring the depths of Pinoy psyche as well as universal concerns.

Kenneth Montegrande

Like a meteor, Kenneth Montegrande streaked his way across the firmament of Philippine contemporary art. Essentially an Abstract Expressionist in the gestural vein, Montegrande explores the elusive and mutable nature of landscape, the abstract terrain of a psychic terra incognita.

Eufemio Rasco

The female nude paintings of Eufemio Rasco bring to mind the oft-quoted declaration of the American Abstractionist master Willem de Kooning: “Flesh was the reason why oil paint was invented.”

Bullet Dematera

With his impressive technical and drafting skills, Bullet Dematera spins a natural world viewed through Hyperrealist eyes.

Mayi Penafloria

Mayi Penafloria’s work conveys an appealingly feminine world: all sweetness and grace and delicacy but blighted underneath by failed and drifting human relationships.

Faye Pamintuan

A swirling, whirling abstract topography of oscillating passages of indistinct forms and pallid colors, Faye Pamintuan’s work is a spontaneous evocation of process and chance.

Reynard Borillo

In the grip of enchantment with Japonaiserie, Reynard Borillo depicts a dolled-up geisha caught in the vise between tradition and modernity.

Hamilton Sulit

Against the specter of the Crucifixion, casting a gloomy pall of shadows, is Hamilton Sulit’s solitary figure of the Dead Christ stretched out on the ground.

Renato Balute

With the human visage as his play- and battleground, Renato Balute alters our perception of individual identity with a panoply of contemporary pop and digital wizardry.

Jared Yokte

With his trademark delineations of figures with sinewy musculature, neither human nor cartoonish, Jared Yokte humorously exposes the foibles and frailties of eccentric neighbors, the denizens of his domestic universe.

Ross Capili

An artist of impressive range propelled by an adventurous and experimental approach to artmaking, the art of Ross Capili exults in the lyricism of his subject, whether rendered in representation or abstraction.

Demi Padua

Coming a long way from his use of the humble cardboard, both as subject and medium — an intentional reference to his own lowly beginnings — Demi Padua has evolved his sculptural relief works into a more complex and exhilarating visual and tactile experience.

Winner Jumalon

Winner Jumalon taps into the viewer’s subconscious even as he proffers disparate images stirring within a subliminal context.

Niccolo Jose

Niccolo Jose recycles pieces of wood that are up to 300 years old and transforms them into timeless and universal forms, mining them for their natural warmth and grace, extracting an astonishing choreography of curvilinear and arrested motion. 

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