Artists rethinking form, meaning at Art Fair Philippines 2026

MANILA, Philippines – Art Fair Philippines is back, and this year, it’s taking over a new part of the city. From February 6 to 8, the fair moves to Circuit Makati for a weekend of art, culture, and curious wandering.

With around 50 participating exhibitors, the fair brings together leading galleries from across the Philippines, alongside exhibitors from France, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, and Spain, further positioning Manila as an active player in regional and global art conversations.

Over the years, Art Fair Philippines has made a habit of occupying unexpected spaces — from The Link and Ayala Triangle Gardens to now Circuit Makati — gently pushing against the idea that art only belongs in museums or white-walled galleries. The move to Circuit continues this approach, also acting on the belief that art plays an essential role in how communities come together, and how cities are built, experienced, and reimagined. 

People behind the art

This year’s fair shines a spotlight on a wide range of artists, from emerging names to established figures in contemporary art. Visitors can expect to encounter new voices experimenting with form and material alongside familiar artists whose work has shaped the local and regional scene over the years. 

Imelda Cajipe Endaya

Imelda Cajipe-Endaya is a Filipino visual artist, curator, author, art organizer, and activist. For over 10 years after college, she focused on printmaking, creating works that explore Filipino identity, women’s experiences, and the lives of migrant workers. She was also known to combine indigenous materials with recycled and found objects. 

This year, the focus will be on Cajipe-Endaya’s work, A Votary’s Art, a title that nods to her dedication as a “votary,” or devoted follower, of her craft. The exhibition will also feature a wide selection of her prints from across her decades-long career, showcasing a variety of subjects, techniques, and materials.

Ambie Abaño

Ambie Abaño is a printmaker known for her mastery of the woodcut. Exhibiting widely in local and international scenes, Abaño’s works often dwell on themes of life, the soul, and the self. 

Beyond their meditative quality, her works stand out for their distinctive mediums. Abaño will further push the boundaries of woodcut by experimenting with different surfaces — including fabric and wood — for her upcoming exhibit.

Max Balatbat

Max Balatbat’s art takes social realities as its starting point, which he interprets through mixed media and architectural abstractions. Much of his practice is shaped by his close ties to his community in Caloocan, which now brings us to his recreation of a chapel — built by his grandmother — at the end of their home street.

Balatbat’s exhibit at the fair will feature projects that are deeply focused on the relationships between religion and spirituality, and Filipino urban life.

Constancio Bernardo

Constancio Bernardo, born in 1913, was a Filipino painter whose work moved steadily toward abstraction. A favored student of Fernando Amorsolo, he was encouraged early on to study abroad, eventually receiving a UP Fellowship and a Fulbright Grant to Yale University. There, he completed his undergraduate and master’s degrees in art and was deeply influenced by Josef Albers, whose studies on color and form shaped Bernardo’s later practice.

Despite his achievements, his work is rarely seen today, as much of it has been kept and preserved by his family. Fairgoers will have the chance to see his paintings up close.

Brenda Fajardo

Brenda Fajardo was a Filipino artist, activist, and educator whose work engaged social issues, women’s experiences, and Philippine history. A graduate of UP Los Baños and later the University of Wisconsin–Madison in the US, her practice was rooted in what she described as the “aesthetics of poverty,” shaped by her long involvement in activism, community work, and teaching.

At Art Fair Philippines, the presentation centers on Fajardo’s tarot series, where she transposed European and Western tarot imagery through Philippine lens, including contemporary, colonial, and mythological figures.

Ged Unson Merino 

Ged Unson Merino is a Filipino-American visual artist based in New York and the founding director of Bliss on Bliss Art Projects in Sunnyside, Queens. His practice is mostly influenced by his experience as a migrant, often looking at questions of movement, belonging, and how one learns to live within unfamiliar spaces.

His installations frequently invite interaction and collaboration, allowing audiences and co-creators to engage with the work as part of an ongoing and collective process.

Tessy and Jon Pettyjohn 

Jon and Tessy are pioneers of ceramics in the Philippines and were instrumental in shaping pottery education through a pottery school they ran for many years. 

While they often worked together, their artistic practices remained distinctly their own. Tessy’s creations, guided by dreams and intuition, take on an organic, occasionally otherworldly quality, while Jon, in contrast, was deeply engaged with the ceramic medium itself, leaning more on creation for the sake of function and form.

Their work, “Sa Tahanan Co.,” presents a collection that centers on the Filipino diaspora and brings together four to five artists working across different media. The group looks at Filipino objects found in archives and collections abroad and reexamines them through a postcolonial lens. 

By tracing how these objects have been preserved or reframed outside the Philippines, the works invite viewers to reconsider history, authorship, and how Filipino culture has been shaped and reshaped beyond its place of origin.

Solomon Saprid 

Solomon Saprid was a Filipino sculptor whose practice left a strong influence on generations of artists. While widely known for his bronze sculptures — especially the Tikbalang series made from welded metal scraps — illustrating remained an essential part of his practice.

In the upcoming fair, the focus turns to Saprid’s figure studies, particularly his nude illustrations rendered in charcoal and other drawing mediums.

Romeo Tabuena 

Romeo Tabuena was a Filipino artist associated with the neo-realist movement of the early 1950s, alongside figures like Vicente Manansala. In 1952, he left the Philippines to study art abroad, and by 1955 had settled in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, where he lived for the rest of his life. Though his work has consistently found a market in the Philippines, he remains relatively unknown to local audiences.

Tabuena was deeply fascinated by technique, form, and experimentation. Subject matter was secondary to him; he constantly explored shapes, colors, and the possibilities of medium, resulting in a highly varied body of work. His contributions were celebrated in Mexico with major retrospectives in 1995 and 1996, marking four decades of dedication to the artistic life of San Miguel de Allende and highlighting the cross-cultural reach of his practice.

Ampparito

Ampparito is a Spanish artist based in Madrid, known for his large-format murals, urban installations, and studio works that mix irony and social critique. He studied Fine Arts at the Complutense University of Madrid and began his career in London, creating urban compositions that transform everyday objects into playful yet thought-provoking forms.

In Art Fair Philippines’ collaboration with the Spanish Embassy, Ampparito presents a performance installation that explores the inevitability of death. He will handwrite every day in calendar form up to the year 2099, continuously marking the passage of time, of which symbolizes a meditative, large-scale ritual that turns repetition and scale into a reflection on life and mortality.

Bridging art and technology

In the midst of technology’s integration into everyday life, the fair similarly explores its intersection with art through showcasing works in animation, virtual and augmented reality, artificial intelligence, and the metaverse. It features painter and graphic artist TRNZ and interdisciplinary Filipino art group TLYR collective.

TRNZ

TRNZ, a pseudonym of Terence Eduarte, is a Filipino visual artist with a penchant for exploring the instability in the quotidian. He received a BFA Major in Advertising and was introduced to art through Japanese-dubbed anime. His works depict “fragments” of personal and online imagery through misarrangement and repetition, reconstructing the familiar into illogical patterns that invite viewers into introspection.

TRNZ debuts The Keeper in collaboration with Fleet Studios. It is an animated short film that explores the gravity of pressure in our society and how the most important things fall through the cracks in pursuit of greatness. The story narrates the struggle of a trophy-room keeper to pursue an unwanted visitor around an overly organized room, only to discover life was happening despite her lack of attention to it.

TLYR Collective

TLYR Collective, formerly known as Cryptoartph, is a Filipino interdisciplinary group of creatives who make contemporary art through fusing technology, culture, and creativity.

TLYR Collective challenges the boundaries between the physical and the simulated through a digital alchemy-themed immersive installation that explores the fluidity of identity and virtual spaces through generative art and augmented reality.

More initiatives

In partnership with the Ateneo Art Gallery and the Museum Foundation of the Philippines, Art Fair Philippines will host daily sessions of deep dives in which the 2026 project artists will discuss their work. The talk will also be an opportunity to exchange views on art collecting and the art market. Speakers and specific topics will be announced on the fair’s website.

The fair will continue to expand the horizons of Filipino artists through the ArtFairPH/Residencies program that facilitates local artists in global exchanges. The program also aims to introduce selected international curators to the Filipino art scene. Applications open February 2026.

There will also be “10 Days of Art,” running from January 30 to February 8, which is a series of events and museum openings at Circuit Corporate Center One, The Circuit Makati.

These large-scale public art installations will be scattered throughout the Makati Central Business District, leading to the main event at Circuit Makati, in celebration of Makati’s spirit:

Signs and Imitations by Alfredo & Isabel Aquilizan at Ayala Tower One, Fountain Area

Carousel by Ronald Ventura at Ayala Malls Circuit

Nagsasalitang Ulo by Mich Dulce at Greenbelt 5 Gallery

Art 2 Wear by Joel Wijangco at Greenbelt 5 Gallery

Underground by Fotomoto PH at Paseo Underpass

Between Thoughts by Isaiah Cacnio at One Ayala Mall Terminal, Glorietta 4 Cinema, Glorietta Activity Center, Greenbelt 4, and Circuit Mall Makati

On-site day passes will also be available for purchase at the reception desk throughout the fair, running from Friday to Sunday, February 6 to 8, from 10 am to 9 pm, at Circuit Corporate Center 1.

For group bookings of more than 10 persons, please email tickets@artfairphilippines.com in advance. – Rappler.com

Angel Baleña and Claire Masbad are Rappler interns.