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For Those Who'd Like To Know Who These People Are

Poklong Anading

His works are seeming documentation of accidents and forbearance for the physics of materials – be it sound, movement, dust, lines, light, bodily secretions – as to probe and capture their very essence despite their invisibility and primal quality. All these he translates to crisscrossing media of video, performance, painting, drawing and photography, as well as collaborations with other artists like Ringo Bunoan for the 4th Gwangju Biennale in South Korea and Ernest Concepcion, Jose Beduya, Tado Jimenez (for Gitaw) and all other willing conspirators, even blind street musicians in the name of intuitive music. While being a resident-artist of Big Sky Mind Artists Projects Foundation in 2003-2004, he has spearheaded the setting up of Cantin Plate, a time-based photo-gallery/art hub for discussions and which doubles as commissary for the inhabitants of the compound during the day. One of such event inaugurated there was Food Pest, a bi-annual thing commemorating the significance of September 21 with a real gastronomic feast featuring artist-concocted dishes. He is also affiliated with Furball productions and earns his keep by doing designs and art directorial work for various productions for TV, films and other commercial firms.
Also this year's recipient of CCP's 13 Artist Award

Argie Bandoy

Despite having earned his degree in advertising at the University of the East in Caloocan, Bandoy appears to be more attuned to the guttural poetry of the streets producing works that are but his esoteric meanderings petering on the visionary. This may have probably owed to a life enmeshed in the underground punk-metal-core scene with a band called D’ Squatters and enduring alliances with Victor Balanon, animator-illustrator that can lick the hell out of Raymond Pettibone, and Ferdz Valencia, a skater-ramp/obstacles/board designer who also founded the skate group and company Incubator. In the late 90s they released the 4-issue Quatro Comix of visceral urbanness. Bandoy scavenges material, text or whatever it is he may find on his way to work as a freelance grahic and web designer. He has held solo exhibits at home in quasi rural-industrial Cainta, Rizal and one in Mag:net. He was also among the 2nd batch of resident artists of BSM for 2004-2005.


Mariano Ching

His paintings, prints and illustrations are enriched by his training as graphic artist and by his experience growing up in the heart of Manila, weaving narratives of such existence and other probable realities hidden beneath the grime and squalor. He was a Mombusho-Japanese Foundation scholar attending Kyoto University in Japan as a research student of printmaking and ceramics for 2002-2004. He was also among those short-listed for the 2005 Ateneo Art Awards and has won illustration awards for children’s books Mayroon Akong Isang Puno and Bakit Matagal Ang Sundo Ko, both published by Adarna books. He’s husband to artist Yasmin Sison and their newly-born son Haraya.
Also this year's recipient of CCP's 13 Artist Awards

Louie Cordero

A multi-awarded painter and creator of underground comics Nardong Tae which has already achieved cult-classic status. He is a graduate of CFA in UP Diliman and has been one of the recipients of the Ateneo Art Award in 2004. He was a resident artist of Big Sky Mind’s residency program from 2002 to 2004 and of the Vermont Studio Center in 2003, and has shown his paintings and drawings in Studio 3 in Japan, and in One Mina Art Gallery in San Francisco. He’s currently co-managing Future Prospects with Gary Pastrana, Cocoy Lumbao and Erick Encinares.
Also this year's recipient of CCP's 13 Artist Awards.

Christina Dy

If her works bespeak of a propensity for the vainglorification of fetish, tis perhaps her means of coping with the psychological and emotional hazards of her work as an art teacher, designer, stylist and contributing writer for local fashion glossies and for one publication which has a predominantly male readership – FHM and newly-launched Pump Magazine. Yet this only demonstrates the industry with which she handles these multiple job descriptions and interlocking networks from fashion, music, film and publication. Accordingly, she is rewarded for some – for best production design for 2005 Cinemalaya Film Festival entry Ang Pagdadalaga ni Maximo Oliveros directed by Aureus Solito and Michiko Yamamoto and produced by UFO Films. With partner and associate Jugs of the pop rock band Itchyworms, she manufactures a line of plush sex dolls and faceless teddy bears upholstered in black leather and/or lace. Her training and induction to art consisted of a 16mm film making workshop at Mowelfund in 1998, art workshops at Ayala Museum and at her alma mater Ateneo de Manila University, and joining SBW in 2001. Since then, she has been actively exhibiting with a group or by her own and concocting related projects.


Jed Escueta

The lomocam may have been a phenomenal hip fad accessory which soon faded out as soon as it conked out from overtly “shooting from the hip”. Nonetheless, Jed has pursued on “shooting” and never seems to miss a “hit”. Diaristic, ominous, and habitual is as he treats his photography, the camera his visual proboscis. His team up with Leo Saño have produced a series of short films starring the action figure JC in parables reconfigured for modern times i.e. JC Kicks Alien Ass. This was screened in Sp*t sa Pinilakang Tabing, a film festival organized by Arkipelago last 2003 in NY. He has been a resident artist of BSM for 2003-2004. He’s currently finishing his fine arts degree at University of the Philippines in Diliman, QC, at the same time fine-tuning production of a DVD with Jet Melencio where his photos of blurred skies and foliage was used as a compositional device for sound artists Mizuki Endo, Rubber Inc. and Melencio himself.


Lyra Abueg Garcellano

Has degrees in Interdisciplinary Studies and Fine Arts earned from the Ateneo de Manila University and at UP CFA Diliman respectively. As an artist-in-residence of Cemeti Art Foundation in Yogyakarta, Indonesia in 2002, she has worked on themes concerning land and property. These are symptomatic of and/or issues adjunct to societal and cultural definitions of territories – a consequence of how these cultures ordain values and identities to certain groups. She presents these power-culture dynamics in her postcard A Filipino Girl. Though traditionally garbed, she poses defiantly to such representation. These postcards has also traveled with Judy Freya Sibayan representing Scapular Gallery Nomad in the 4th Gwangju Biennale in South Korea in 2002. Lyra’s prior works finds her attempting to break these boundaries and reclaiming what was once denied or forbidden. This as seen in a serial photo of road blockades, broke-in vaults, and re-weaving the history of a maligned queen whose conquests were thought to be improper. Lyra works as a professional illustrator for numerous publications, including children’s books. She has also created the comic strip The Adventures of Atomo & Weboy the Buddha Bear syndicated in the Phil. Daily Inquirer. She’s a long time member of Ang INK (Ilustrador ng Kabataan).

Also this year's recipient of CCP's 13 artist awards.

Robert Langenegger

Inspite of all the ailments plaguing this third world resident, he manages to produce art with a little help from certain medicinal plants. His enlarged liver continues to overwork itself for art’s sake. He wanted to take up ethnobotany in college but found no such course so right now he’s studying the next closest thing, Fine Arts in Kalayaan College in Marikina City. He is an expert at any medium including amateur custom tattoo performed under unsanitary conditions. On a lighter note, air and noise pollution in his street is pushing him to the brink of insanity. What will happen to our children’s children ?
Also the painter to look out for this century.

Paolo Martinez
He had briefly studied Visual Communication at the University of the Phil. College of Fine Arts but soon transferred and continued similar studies at Kalayaan College. His works range from paintings, installations to sound experiments particularly that of ambient and noise. He also reconstructs such sounds from pre-recorded material using improvised gadgets and electronic toys.


Jet Melencio

He comes from an older batch of artists from UP College of Fine Arts who did such characteristic marvelously thick paintings. But he is never to be singularly categorized or solely named, having ventured into stage design for the musical Paulit-ulit na Paikot-ikot na Pag-guhit ng Bilog directed and choreographed by Paul Morales; art administration as an erstwhile curator of Ayala Art Museum in Makati in the mid 90s and having a hand in establishing art space/cafe Big Sky Mind with Katya Guerrero and Ringo Bunoan; performance as playing one of the leads in the musical Lean, a musical detailing the heroism of the legendary Fil. Activist of the 80s; and as lead vocalist of now-defunct but seminal bands of the 80s and 90s Sonic City Zoo and Poppy Field. This is reflective of his relentless foray into various media, format and materials in pursuit of highly affecting visuals. His photographs of Alimall mannequins is the result of of an art seminar project where Robert Chabet has instructed to take photos of sites of “shallow graves” around Cubao.


Jayson Oliveria

He approaches paintings as dilettante investigations into the linguistic games of clichés cannibalized from found materials, oftenly his past works. He identifies most with the slackers and wily jesters of art. He was awarded in 2004 the Ateneo Art Awards and was an artist-in-residence of Big Sky Mind Artists Projects Foundation for 2003-2004 and at Art Space Tetra in Fukuoka, Japan in late 2004 and where he has also exhibited. He’s currently awaiting the opening of his solo exhibit this August at The Art Center of SM Megamall, his nth one since his last held at Green Papaya Artists Projects, Mag:net Art Gallery, The Drawing Room, Theo Gallery at Saguijo Café.

Also this year's recipient of CCP's 13 Artist Awards.


Gary-Ross Pastrana
An artist/curator who now manages Theo Gallery, a small art space in Makati City that has shown works by Jayson Oliveria, Juan Alcazaren, Louie Cordero and Alfredo Aquilizan. He is also a graduate of the UP Fine Arts program and has had exhibitions in Thailand at the Bangkok University Gallery, and in Japan at the IAF Shop in Fukuoka. He also works as a production designer for stage and television.
Also this year's recipient of CCP's 13 Artist Awards

Stanley Ruiz
His extensive experience with industrial design in various trading firms based internationally speaks forth for his installations and objects he exhibits as though these ‘works’ are prototypes of a mass-produced product or rather mere ‘interruptions’ from such serial kind of production. Mostly works with sound and has capitulated on the compositional possibilities of the ensuing chaos of engaged modern tools – batteries, carpentry equipment, old speakers – leading him to produce his own sound instrument called the Skonto. His punk history which consisted of independently producing albums for his band the PutangInas/P-I-NAS and customarily publishing his own zine Voice Out from 1993-1996.
Despite having earned his Industrial Design degree at UP CFA, Diliman, he has just recently enriched them with electronic media courses in the School of Visual Arts and Product Design at Pratt Institute NY.

Don Salubayba

He had largely been exhibiting since his teens at the Philippine High School for The Arts in Mt. Makiling as a Visual Arts major and even after graduating from UP CFA in 2000. Serving as artistic board member of the ANINO Shadowplay Collective, he has directed several of its production staged at CASA San Miguel in Zambales and at the Abelardo Hall of UP Diliman. He has also represented ANINO in the 1st Intl. Shadowplay Festival in Patras, Greece. He has been awarded several grants last 2004 by the Mowelfund Film Institute for their Film Animation Workshop and by the Asian Cultural Council for his art residencies at the Intl. Studio and Curatorial Program in New York and in Headlands Center for The Arts in San Francisco. He works as a visiting faculty of his high school alma mater and conducting workshops and staging productions of ANINO.


Yasmin Sison

She has earned her bachelor’s degrees in Humanities and Fine Arts, and a certificate in Professional Education all at the University of the Philippines in Diliman.
Her paintings, collages and drawings deal with images encountered in popular movies, fashion magazines, pulp romances – which she manipulates to create another fiction. This she has extended with a series of collaborative works with another artist Lena Cobangbang as Alice & Lucinda respectively, investigating myths and procuring identities running parallel with their actual lives. They have also worked together in publishing the fanzine Lunar Landing which had a 10 issue run from its inception in 1998. Adjusting to a new life as a wife and mother, she shuttles between painting and teaching pre-school kids in the Montessori way. Her works having integrated images from archaic pre-WW2 grammar books somewhat reflects these concerns.

Also this year's recipient of CCP's 13 Artist Awards.

Keiye Miranda-Tuazon

Her photographs, Underwater Scenes, compiled through the years as studies for her large oil paintings reveal an interiority quite foreboding. Her prior series of domestic spaces has more apparent undertones o f such unease. Hailing from Angono, she with her siblings, was nurtured earlier on to a life of art. This she passes on to her students and to her daughter with whom she balances parental duty with husband Wire Tuazon.


Wire Tuazon

He works with a wide gamut of format – painting, collage, sound, performance, video – including collaborations with other artists for projects which transforms into communities and/or networks. No project for him is to be so differentiated from the other as each one is a venue for discourse between the artist and the public. SBW may be considered as one of them. He was also instrumental in mobilizing the art scene in Angono from an idyllic tourist trap to a more dynamic scene via Neo Angono which handles activities during the town’s feast day. Being a former vocalist of ska band The Neighbors may have imbibed in him the same DIY fervor propelling him to such deeds.
In 2001, he was granted an artist residency Ashiya City, Japan by the Japanese Foundation. He was also a recipient of the 13th artist award given by CCP in 2003.


MM Yu

She lets her paints drip all the way down to the edge of the canvas, whereas her subjects – church steeples, fast food logos, bridges – in her series of photographs entitled Holding Someone’s Hair Back are similarly forced out of the frame by the wide expanse of sky as though playing hide and seek, pushing and pulling for exposure and obscurity. She has recently participated in 600 Images/60 Artists/6 Curators/6 Cities, a photo exhibit curated by Judy Freya Sibayan. This is simultaneously held in Lumiere in Makati, Bangkok / Berlin / London / Los Angeles / Manila / Saigon. She has opened 3 paintings exhibits locally and was among the 1st batch of resident artists of Big Sky Mind Artists Projects Foundation for 2003-2004. She works part-time as a photographer for a commercial studio in between preparing for shows and collaborating with Poklong Anading for their book projects. She’s a member of IRIS, a photography organization based in UP College of Fine Arts in Diliman, QC.