Let The Hues Do The Talking

Within walls and panels inside the fifth edition of MoCAF, the colors spoke in more ways than one.

Words Rica Mae Labbao
Photos courtesy of Derek Pedrialva
July 09, 2026

“Color hides a power still unknown but real, which acts on every part of the human body.”

Wassily Kandinsky is an art theorist and painter who has always believed that colors possess an impact that influences people. It is grounded in the color theory that states how emotions and perceptions are connected to what color the eyes see.

Behind every artwork exhibited for MoCAF 2026, a story connecting colors to personal narratives and expressions are hidden underneath.

Nostalgic symbolism of childhood memories

Behind Jappy Agoncillo’s special exhibit, keep going, popping and alive matching colors are the best reminder of his childhood fascination with cartoons and hand-drawn animation works. It is a guiding hand that helps him put more of his identity, creativity, and personal feelings to his craft.

keep going by Jappy Agoncillo

“I feel like artists can really use color and [the] color theory as a way of showing the emotions behind their work, but also showing the kind of person they are when they're making it. What's going through their heads when they're making it, and the kind of person they want you to feel from the artwork”, Agoncillo shared with the Art+ Magazine.

Jappy creates artworks that evoke childhood nostalgia with playful palettes and characters. As he puts it, colors display the emotions of an artwork. Between all the colors chosen are the feelings intended to be felt by the artists and the viewers. 

“I feel like color brings out the mood and the emotion in a piece,” he concluded.

Intentional, resonating choice

Choosing to be intentional with what the artwork would feel like to the audience is something Renee Avila does using colors. 

Unshaken Ground by Renee Avila

With her series, Unshaken Ground, displayed inside the Art Corner booth, she mentioned how her chosen color palette for over 2 years now has also been a visible material that resonates her lighter and calmer feelings.

“If you change the colors, the mood is different, right? The message is different, the mood is different. So, the colors are so important because it affects not just the mood of the artist, [but] also the audience,” she shared.

A signal of evolving transformation

For Kevin Raymundo, famously known as Tarantadong Kalbo, colors can also signify one’s journey. From oranges and blues to reds and yellows, TK’s special collection called ‘Tarantadong Kalb-hue’ is a special commemoration of his life journey as a creative—from animation to comics and painting.

Tarantadong Kalb-hue by Tarantadong Kalbo

“May spectrum siya. So, parang ‘yon yung journey ko as an artist. Nagshi-shift siya eh. Kasi di ba, ‘yon nga, from animation to comics to painting.”

Besides that, TK also mentioned how he finds colors as a way to inject his personality within his works or convey his personal life, just like how life has ups and downs, he said hues also ebbs and flows.

A way to convey messages

Aisha Villabonna, the artist behind the name Ladybugs, saw the importance of colors with the way it can be used to impart messages. 

In her work for this year’s Discoveries entitled ‘Floraison’, the color gamut she used is a way to express the peacefulness she felt while making it and to manifest this lighter time for a long time.

MoCAF Digital Discoveries

“Colors speak to me in a certain way as an artist because it's what the artist who made it is trying to portray what they felt during that moment. Also in a sense, it's about what you want to convey in the art, and the understanding of what you can convey with those colors is really important.”

To her, using the right shades to represent what she wanted to express is an important part when making art, despite sometimes having to choose to use different ones from her branding as an artist. 

As she says, “sometimes you don’t resonate with bright colors.”

Just like how each color has variations of hues and saturations, every artist paints with similar sets of colors known to mankind but different stories of meaning behind it. 

At MoCAF, every nook and cranny is filled with tones that are not afraid of showing itself and connecting with people, instead it welcomes and embraces the art of expressing and resonating.

Indeed, eyes are the windows to the soul and the colors that attract the eyes directly seep through and speak to you.