The Art of Calling Valenzuela Home

Art

Sep 8

“Buhay at Sining” brings together Arte Valenzuelano artists to explore the city’s people, places, cultural heritage and everyday stories through contemporary art, offering a portrait of Valenzuela and the people who shape it.

Words Elle Andrea
Photos courtesy of University of the East-College of Fine Arts Architecture and Design
September 8, 2026

What does a city look like when you see it through the eyes of the people who call it home?

The answer takes shape in the latest exhibition “Buhay at Sining”, at the University of the East-College of Fine Arts Architecture and Design (UE CFAD), part of the university’s Sangang-Daan Community Exhibition Series at the Chua King Ha Galleries in UE Caloocan.

The artworks are inspired by the rhythms of Valenzuelan’s everyday life visualized through different paintings, sculptures, and mixed media. In this exhibition, the participating artists portrayed the city beyond just framing their hometown as a postcard version of it, since most of the attention is focused on the everyday details that makes their community feel lived-in.

The pieces feature the city’s bustling markets, familiar streets, scenes of daily labor, and personal reflections on modern womanhood. Collectively, they capture the textures of ordinary life while showing us how these seemingly small moments can become part of a much larger cultural story.

One of its central pieces is a visual tribute to Dr. Pio Valenzuela. As the namesake of the city and a figure that’s deeply tied to the country’s revolutionary history, his presence provides a bridge between Valenzuela’s past and the artists shaping its contemporary cultural identity.

The exhibit is a compilation of works by Arte Valenzuelano, an artist-led collective and a growing community of passionate painters, sculptors, and multimedia creators from Valenzuela City.

The collective aims to make fine art more accessible while celebrating the city’s heritage along with its evolving creative landscape.

Apart from showcasing their latest cultural pieces, the exhibition also served as a homecoming for several of UE-CFAD alumni, which made their participation a full-circle moment for the university’s community that allowed current students to witness the creative paths of artists who once stood where they are now.

It's the kind of connection that Sangang-Daan, or “Crossroads,” hopes to create.

The exhibition series helps to bring established artists, emerging students, and the public into the same creative conversation. Their aim is to be more than just a gallery program, but to create a space for mentorship and collaboration.

And maybe that's what makes Buhay at Sining resonate with artists beyond the gallery walls. Not just to represent Valenzuela, but to show how a place becomes a part of the people who live in it and how those people in return, continue to give their city new ways of being seen.