Noteworthy paintings from Art Fair Philippines 2025
The recently concluded Art Fair Philippines was a great way to see what is “hot” in the art market. And it was a conflagration of cuteness.
In the time of Pop Mart aesthetic supremacy, many exhibiting artists latch onto the super flat legacy and the reductionist cuteness made by Japanese artists back in the 1990s. Then there’s the occasional urban graffiti bombast, ironically exhibited inside ground zero of Makati’s business dynamo.
However, some paintings are reliably unapologetic and not caught in the wanton clutches of the art market as dictated by interior designers or fads. One of these is Doktor Karayom’s unsettling Sino Nagnakaw sa Ulo ng Gabay? (2025) (Who Stole the Guide’s Head – translation mine) at Kaida Contemporary. Amidst a violently bloody field of red (which is Doktor Karayom’s color of choice) is a decapitated putto figure or a cherub in Catholic visual culture.
Though there is a gaping hole where the head is supposed to be, smaller cherubic heads erupt from the skin and limbs like boils or welts from a disease—this transgressive debilitation of a much-cherished figure of Catholic innocence and occasional messenger for the Divine.
Doktor Karayom deftly creates unease with their works. You cannot scream blasphemy at this painting unless you admit to worshipping these chubby angels. Contemporary art’s role is to relegate images onto shaky ground. Are these images “holy?” For whom? For what reason?
Contemporary art always targets sacred cows. Questioning the position atop the pedestal is a political act. For one thing, to emerge as the accepted one, others are relegated to the side for being inadequate. Among those considered sacred is “identity” itself.
Winna Go’s Puzzled Identities series at Art Verite Gallery offers a nuanced approach to identity, segmented into pixels of details from different East Asian patterns, forming traditional Chinese imperial clothing. Yet, if you take a closer look, some patterns emerge from traditional and indigenous Filipino material culture, such as filigrees of piña embroidery and Yakan patterns. This series offers a different perspective on belonging in such heated geopolitical times when ethnonationalists confuse ethnicity with citizenship or even simply with belonging to the Philippines.
The issue of Chinese encroachment into our waters is an open nerve for many Filipinos. Yet, the qualifier for encroachment is “Chinese,” and that is problematic for people who cannot distinguish between the Chinese people (who have been in constant contact and exchange with the Philippines for centuries) and the imperial state policy of the Communist Chinese government.
This series goes for the jugular in terms of troubling the identities of “Asianness,” “Chineseness,” and “Filipinoness.” There is no such thing as a pure culture, and this series aptly demonstrates that.
Perhaps it is because of our Catholic entrenchment as a culture that we have a spate of religious-themed images. Catholic visual culture is a rich source that Filipinos can not only mine but also reinforce and recast.
This approach to the Divine takes an interesting turn with IS Jumalon’s Celestial Announcement at Silverlens. The title evokes several images in the religious articulation of the intangibly cosmic. Still, this painting is a frenzy of what looks like foliage with organic shapes that converse with the built environment.
The Abrahamic religions usually depict paradise as a garden. Jumalon’s vision of the celestial is very much rooted in our surroundings, which we usually take for granted. With Jumalon, the leaves look like fireworks, exalting a sky over snippets of walls, floors, and city lights.
You may reach Chong Ardivilla at kartunistatonto@gmail.com or chonggo.bsky.social