Echoes and Visions: Exhibitions in February 2025

Words Amanda Juico Dela Cruz
February 20, 2025

Paul Eric Roca, Paens of Despair

Art distorts, clarifies, and redefines how we see the world. This season’s exhibitions bring us into realms where chaos fuels transformation, identity flickers between presence and absence, and history finds form in unexpected materials. Paul Eric Roca’s grotesque figures expose unsettling truths, while Renato Barja Jr., Ranelle Dial, Carlo Gabuco, Alynnah Macla, Eunice Sanchez, and Taj Hassan Tadeo capture the restless pulse of the city. Lui Manaig deconstructs portraiture, Benedicto Cabrera expands his iconic imagery, and Norberto Roldan meditates on impermanence. Isang Dosenang Dagitab gathers twelve artists who ignite the canvas with boundary-pushing visions—blending tradition with innovation, past with present, to reveal vibrant, new interpretations of identity, place, and history.

“Creatures of Apathy” by Paul Eric Roca at Altro Mondo

In Creatures of Apathy, Paul Eric Roca conjures a surreal, dystopian realm where unsettling societal truths take form. His grotesque, deformed creatures reflect the fractured state of contemporary existence, offering a stark visual commentary on political and social unrest. Through symbolic imagery of decay and distortion, Roca transforms familiar objects into nightmarish figures, evoking a world teetering on the edge of collapse. Drawing from his experience as a political cartoonist, Roca’s works intertwine personal insight with a larger commentary on a future fraught with uncertainty. His haunting paintings demand confrontation, urging viewers to acknowledge the fragile reality of our present.

“Without Chaos, Nothing Can Evolve” by Renato Barja Jr., Ranelle Dial, Carlo Gabuco, Alynnah Macla, Eunice Sanchez, and Taj Hassan Tadeo at Blanc Gallery

This exhibition brings together visual narratives that reflect the raw, unfiltered energy of the city. Through layered textures, intricate details, and bold compositions, the works capture the tension between decay and renewal, chaos and structure. The artists embrace the unpredictability of their mediums—whether through monotype, oil, or mixed techniques—mirroring the city's restless pulse. Fragmented spaces, skeletal frameworks, and abandoned interiors serve as both subject and metaphor, revealing stories of resilience, loss, and transformation. In this ever-shifting urban landscape, disorder is not an end but a force of change, shaping the way we see, remember, and rebuild.

“A Hundred Words to Describe a Portrait” by Lui Manaig at Art Verité Gallery

Lui Manaig’s A Hundred Words to Describe a Portrait  reimagines portraiture as a dance of surfaces and textures. Faces recede, giving way to the poetry of movement—an assemblage of limbs, flowing fabrics, sculptural footwear, and shifting silhouettes. Merging his Hair Restoration and Walk That Walk series, Manaig crafts identities that flicker between presence and performance. Costumes, hairstyles, and gestures dissolve into a restless collage, where the body speaks louder than the face. In this fluid interplay of adornment and motion, portraiture becomes less about recognition and more about the ever-changing choreography of selfhood.

“ARTISTPROOF” by Benedicto Cabrera at BenCab Museum

BenCab’s ARTISTPROOF reimagines his iconic works through tapestry and sculpture, blending tradition with innovation. In collaboration with Abitare Internazionale, the collection of twelve pieces transforms his visual language with digital precision. High-definition Chromojet printing renders every brushstroke on polyamide acrylic, turning paintings into woven compositions rich in texture and tone. Meanwhile, brass and stainless steel sculptures breathe new dimensionality into his imagery, translating movement and emotion into sculptural form. These works explore the interplay of material and memory, expanding BenCab’s artistic process into a tactile, immersive experience where surface and depth converge in poetic harmony.

“No Winter Lasts Forever” by Norberto Roldan at Silverlens Galleries

Norberto Roldan’s No Winter Lasts Forever distills the poetics of impermanence, shaped by a year steeped in Berlin. Returning to Manila, he brings an artistic lexicon forged in solitude and reinvention. Flea markets—repositories of discarded lives—became his studio, where forgotten objects whispered new possibilities. Here, he engaged in an alchemical process of selection and transformation, a practice echoing the surrealists’ embrace of chance encounters. Roldan’s Berlin Journal structures time’s quiet rhythm, while Transcontinental Diary juxtaposes memory and displacement. No Winter Lasts Forever becomes a meditation on resilience, a testament to art’s ability to reimagine what endures.

“Isang Dosenang Dagitab” by Chinnich, Clark Neola, Dale Bagtas, Dana Bote, Isobel Francisco, Jayme Lucas, Lymuel Bautista, Madonna Mortera, Nano Vocalan, Scarlet Aguilar, Seth Corda, and Sonny Tolentino III at ArtistSpace presented by Arcadia Art Gallery

Twelve sparks, twelve distinct voices, each one lighting up the canvas in their own way. Isang Dosenang Dagitab brings together artists who speak in vivid strokes, blending old with new, tradition with revolution. Their works are not mere pictures; they pulse with identity, place, and the weight of history. Through layers of color, texture, and form, they dismantle the ordinary and reveal the extraordinary beneath. Each piece is a universe of its own, where the process—explorative, daring, and intimate—becomes the language, and the result, a dazzling reflection of contemporary vision.