ARTFAIRPH/TALKS

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Three of this year's featured artists are trailblazers in Philippine modern art. Tats Manahan gives an overview on the art of Romeo Tabuena. He was Philippine Art Gallery group active in the post war years and introduced his approach to stylized rural scenes. He continued to depict the everyday when he moved to Mexico in the 1950s. Cid Reyes talks about Solomon Saprid, known for his expressionist sculptures He first practiced as an scientific illustrator for textbooks and teaching materials. He was encouraged to try sculpture by Vicente Manansala which proved to be the medium that gave much acclaim as an artist. Bernardo trained under Fernando Amorsolo who recommended him for a scholarship for graduate studies at Yale University. After his mentorship under Josef Albers, Bernardo returned to pursue a path as one of the foremost proponents of abstract painting.

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About the Speaker/s

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Barbara Mae Dacanay

Journalist Barbara Mae Naredo Dacanay has been writing about art, architecture, literature, music, and theater for the local media such as Business Mirror, Philippine Graphic, GMA Network, ANC X (online feature section of ABS CBN TV Network), Bulletin Lifestyle, and Inquirer.

She was a scriptwriter and director of a 10-episode video about coconut, for Mama Sita Foundation in 2023; and a 20-minute video entitled “Mission,” for the United Church of Christ in the Philippines-National City United Church (UCCP-NCUC) in 2025.

Barbara is a Political journalist, honed by foreign media. She was honed as a political writer who worked for foreign news. She was Manila bureau chief of Gulf News, a daily broadsheet published by Al Nisr Publishing in the United Arab Emirates.

Only five Filipinos ever led the bureaus of (at an estimated 30) foreign news agencies in Manila.She was Manila bureau staff of Hong-Kong based weekly, Asiaweek, which was eventually owned by Times Magazine. She was Manila’s staff reporter of Jiji Press, or Japan News Agency. She started as a freelance contributor of political stories for foreign outlets - Agence France
Presse (French News Agency), US’ CBS TV Network, Hong-Kong based Far Eastern Economic Review, London’s Reuters, and US-Hong Kong’s Time Magazine. She was cited by the Catholic Mass Media Award for a two-year coverage of the investigation of 1983 assassination of Senator Benigno Aquino, for Veritas, a short-lived Roman Catholic
Church news weekly.

Barbara has yet to finish a commissioned two volumes, about the history of and artists produced by the Philippine High School for the Arts (PHSA). She contributed several articles for “Filipino Artists in their Studios,” Vols 1 and 2, published by the Manila Bulletin, in 2015 and 2018. She wrote, “Capen-Rodriguez, the Story of a Global Family,” a 500-page book, published by Australia-based Charles Byron Capen-Rodriguez, in 2010. It is about Spanish and American families that arrived in the Philippines in 1896 and 1931, during the Spanish and US colonial eras. She authored “Mount Pinatubo, 500 Years After (a Long Silence), a 200-page book published by Joseph Tan in 1991, which sold 10,000 copies, a landmark for a book published in the
Philippines.


Cid Reyes

Cid Reyes is the author chosen by five National Artists: Arturo Luz, BenCab, J. Elizalde Navarro, Napoleon Abueva, and Fernando Amorsolo. A graduate of De La Salle University, Reyes studied painting at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Rome and art history at the City Lit Institute in London. For ten years (1995-2004), he wrote the weekly art column "Gallery-Hopping" for TODAY. Reyes authored the interview book "Conversations on Philippine Art."

As an author and co-author, he has written over 40 art books and more than 1,000 artist notes. He co-wrote "TANAW: The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Art Collection" and "The Life and Art of Lee Aguinaldo," both of which received the Alfonso T. Ongpin Prize for Best Art Book.

Reyes’s book, "MVP: The Man and His Art," earned a Gold Stevie International Business Award in 2021.

Recently published are his books on glass sculptor Ramon Orlina, Lydia Velasco, Prudencio Lamarroza, and Roy Veneracion. Cid Reyes was named the Art Association of the Philippines' "Best in Art Criticism" in 1978, and Art Quarterly Manila selected Reyes as “Critic of the Year” in 2001, 2002, and 2003. He was recognized as the "Most Outstanding Kapampangan in the Arts" in 2016. Both the Creative Guild of the Philippines and De La Salle University awarded Reyes the "Lifetime Achievement Award."

As an artist himself, Cid Reyes has held 20 solo exhibitions. His paintings are part of collections at the Cultural Center of the Philippines, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, Philippine Trade Center in New York, Equitable-BDO, Deutsche Bank, PLDT, SMART, Meralco, NLEX, and various private collections.

Cid Reyes is the publisher of the magazine “Conversations on Philippine Art.”

He is the co-creator of the YouTube art channel ArticulatePH and the president of PAAFI (Promoting Art Advocacy Foundation, Inc.).