Maybe We Can Just Figure It Out Along the Way
In her first solo exhibition in Cebu, Gabby Prado embraces the unresolved, finding meaning in the awkward and uncertain moments of making art.
Words Mian Centeno
Photos courtesy of Qube Gallery and Gabby Prado
October 15, 2026
Artwork by Gabby Prado | Photo by Qube Gallery
Not everything needs to fall into place to become something meaningful. Sometimes, the most revealing parts of a process are the moments of hesitation, the awkward transitions, and the uncertainty of not knowing what comes next.
For Manila-based artist Gabby Prado, these moments find form in In the Act of Becoming, her solo exhibition in Cebu at Qube, opened last September 26.
Through gestural abstractions, Prado moves away from the expectation that a painting must arrive at a definitive resolution, allowing uncertainty to become part of the work itself.
Her approach challenges the idea of abstraction as an act of control, where every mark cements the artist’s authority over the canvas. Instead, Prado makes room for hesitation, treating the act of painting as an ongoing process rather than a means of reaching an expected outcome.
This openness to movement and change draws from her background in ballet and performance. After years of training in dance, Prado began exploring how physical movement could be translated into images.
Her paintings and sculptures now serve as expressions of personal experiences, transforming bodily gestures and sensory memories into visual narratives.
Through this process, memory is not simply reproduced—it is reinterpreted with the body, taking shape in marks and forms that may resist direct explanation. The result invites viewers to consider how experiences can remain meaningful even when they cannot be neatly articulated.
In its essence, In the Act of Becoming offers a different understanding of artistic resolution—structuring uncertainty as something visible in the process of creation than treating it as something to overcome.
Perhaps becoming does not require knowing exactly where we are headed. Sometimes, it begins with accepting that we are still figuring things out.
