Beyond Measure: When A Name Sets Sail
At MoCAF, Galeon lives up to his name—placing artworks in motion and allowing them to meet the world.
Words Piolo Cudal
Photo courtesy of Galeon
December 17, 2025
The first art festival is not just a milestone for artists but a reckoning. It is where planning collides with emotion, where personal narratives are laid bare before strangers, and where the idea of “being an artist” finally takes physical form.
For Angelo Provido, known in the art world as Galeon, MoCAF’s Christmas Edit was exactly that kind of moment. This is where he was able to prepare work meant to exist in a shared space, surrounded by other artists, collectors, and audiences moving through the same room.
A Name That Travels
He goes by the name Galeon, an anagram of his given name. But the alias runs deeper than clever wordplay. It nods to his love for Harry Potter, as Galleons being the wizard world’s currency, and to the history of his hometown, Mamburao, Occidental Mindoro, once a hub of galleon trade.
“I wanted to say that I’m an artist who will be able to go places. My art career is currently sailing,” he shared.
When MoCAF emailed its selected artists in November, Galeon was already stretched thin, juggling his day job at the municipal tourism office while leading a provincial trade fair. The MoCAF theme, nostalgia, arrived at an inconvenient time—but perhaps at the right moment.
Instead of constructing a carefully planned collection, he leaned into instinct. Decisions were made in fragments—during breaks, after events, and in the quiet hours of exhaustion. It wasn’t until the final week of November that clarity arrived.
He returned to Muni, his recurring character and emotional stand-in. A childlike figure, Muni mirrors both his younger self and his audience’s unspoken feelings. This time, Muni was reunited with an old companion: a teddy bear from an earlier 2023 series.
The resulting piece, titled “Beyond Measure,” became Galeon’s anchor for MoCAF. The work carried a deceptively simple message: gratitude. Not just for the good moments but for the struggles, delays, doubts, and detours that shape his artistic journey.
“Everything that happened, will happen, and has happened–it happened for a reason. Beyond being angry or sad, we can still be grateful,” he said.
The Reality of the First Festival
Preparing for his first art festival shattered one of Galeon’s early assumptions, that collections can be fully planned: “I realized you can plan a series, but you can’t really plan the end.”
Initially, he imagined Muni crying–tears that could be read as joy, regret, or release. But in a split-second decision, painting well past midnight, he changed course. The tears stayed, but the expression softened into a smile. That moment defined the work, reflecting not just nostalgia but survival, the kind that comes from choosing gratitude over exhaustion.
For an introvert by nature, the idea of placing deeply personal emotions in public could have been paralyzing. But Galeon approached art as language, not confession.
“I don’t think of my pieces as just personal. I think of them as a visual language for people who can’t say what they feel,” he revealed.
Muni became a mirror and sometimes a spokesperson for viewers who see themselves in his vulnerability. Galeon does not expect everyone to understand his work immediately. In fact, he has been told his pieces are “esoteric.”
But mentoring taught him a crucial lesson: depth does not have to be complicated, saying, “If at least one person sees themselves in the piece, then it has already done its job.”
Beyond the finished canvas lies a less romantic reality: missed deadlines, overnight shipping delays, erased sketches, self-doubt, and the constant tension between perfection and time.
There were nights when Galeon finished work at 3 a.m., only to scramble for couriers at dawn. There were moments when he apologized repeatedly to fellow artists, convinced his ideas weren’t good enough.
Balancing a full-time government job with an art practice meant painting only after office hours, when the body was tired, but the mind refused to rest. Yet he held to one rule: never submit work he was not proud of.
“I would rather be late than send something half-hearted. Because if I’m not happy with it, the audience won’t be either,” he said.
Beyond Measure
Having survived MoCAF’s December edition, Galeon now sees himself differently. This year felt grounded. Not perfect, but intentional.
Looking ahead, he speaks with quiet certainty about 2026, local and international exhibitions, larger narratives, and a clearer artistic vision. His closing thought feels fitting not just for his first art festival, but for the artist’s life itself.
“Never expect things to go the way you planned them. But be happy that it happened. As one way or another, life has a funny way of making things happen.”
For Galeon, his first art festival was not the destination. It was proof that the voyage had truly begun.
