13/05/2026
As my thirty-first solo exhibition, 'The Afterlives of Ruin', draws to a close at Qube Gallery, I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to everyone who became part of this meaningful journey.
My deepest thanks to Qube Gallery and to Maris Holopainen for the trust, patience, and enduring support through the years. Spaces like these are vital for artists in the regions, especially in Cebu, where the continued growth of the art ecosystem depends greatly on local institutions, patrons, collectors, writers, educators, and audiences who choose to support and believe in the arts. Without this shared effort, creative communities outside major cultural centers struggle to survive, much less flourish.
To Dr. Jose “Chong” Ardivilla, thank you for guiding the curatorial direction of this exhibition with depth, rigor, and generosity. Your insights gave language and structure to the difficult emotional and material terrain from which these works emerged.
To the friends, fellow artists, students, and members of the art public who visited the show, listened to the talks, shared conversations, and spent time with the works: thank you. Your presence affirmed that art still has the power to create spaces for reflection, dialogue, and shared memory.
This exhibition was deeply personal. Using salvaged fragments from my damaged studio and home, the exhibition became a way of speaking not only about personal loss, but also about the quiet resilience, exhaustion, and persistence of many Cebuanos who continue to endure cycles of natural and man-made disasters. In many ways, these assemblages carry traces of collective memory.
An Artist such as myself continue to make art because we are trying to understand what it means to live through beauty, uncertainty, grief, survival, and hope. Art cannot stop typhoons, corruption, or human neglect. But it can help communities remember, question, heal, and imagine differently. Sometimes that is already a meaningful form of resistance.
For those interested in reading more about the exhibition, here are the curatorial and artist statements in the link provided.
Thank you once again for walking through these ruins with me.
https://www.qubegallery.ph/the-afterlives-of-ruin?fbclid=IwdGRjcARwrORleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZAo2NjI4NTY4Mzc5AAEeGEZPL1wkCnZIfr9ZAvCiwvE6Nhao9ldyT5BKf2WZHp_v05S9S8PMKCy1ng8_aem_JLMuBsWyy2Ns0Euh3xZT9A
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