ABUBOT: Consumption, memory, and transformation
A special exhibit of the If Trees Could Talk International Art Biennale
VIEW ARTISTS
David Mark “DM” Abanes uses a conceptual and abstract style of art, working primarily with assemblage, mixed media, and sculpture. Abanes creates compelling works using found objects and discarded materials - delving into themes of personal memory, identity, and societal fragmentation. The composition of Alive and Telling talks about how trees hold history and incarnation of knowledge and wisdom of time.
David Mark Abanes
Lumaki si Richlie Amican sa probinsya ng Masbate at mula sa kabataan ay siya mismo ang gumagawa ng kaniyang mga sariling laruan mula sa mga found objects.
RICHLIE AMICAN
Joshua Carlos Barrera (b. 1999, Manila) is a contemporary visual artist whose practice is grounded in precision, restraint, and material discipline. Having staged five solo exhibitions, his works have been shown locally, in the United States, Hong Kong, Japan, Thailand, and Ireland through platforms such as Art Fair Philippines, the National Museum of the Philippines, Nucleus Portland, Joyman Gallery, Modeka Art, Altro Mondo, Edoweird, Parallel Plus, Victionary, Underground, and Very Good Gallery. In 2025, the Embassy of Ireland in Manila acquired his works for the Irish State Art Collection, marking a significant recognition of his practice with an international institutional framework.
Barrera is self-taught in practice. He completed a Bachelor of Arts in Arts Management at the De La Salle–College of Saint Benilde.
JOSHUA CARLOS BARRERA
As an artist, Beldia (b. 1969) reconstitutes discarded objects—such as dried oil, acrylic & enamel house paints, plastics, gi sheets, and fabric swatches that have accumulated throughout the years—and recomposes them to create new works. Some materials are hardware items long past their prime. Beldia extends his way of approaching these materials beyond the level of functionality to the plane of aesthetics, treating them as not merely discards or throwaways but as distinct visual forms in themselves.
Nubbin Beldia III majored in Painting at the University of the Philippines College of Fine Arts in Diliman and received an Honorable Mention in the 1988 Metrobank Painting Competition. Since 1987, Beldia has participated almost annually in various group exhibitions aside from holding his first one-man show in 2011. Beldia also engages in interior and furniture design projects when he is not painting.
NUBBIN BELDIA III
I am an artist who turns discarded cardboard and recyclable materials into playful works of art. My journey with cardboard began when I was a child. Before I even knew what this material could do, all I wanted was to make a toy I could play with, just a kid eager to build something with his own hands. That simple joy of creating slowly grew into a lifelong fascination with form, movement, and imagination.
What started with small models of motorcycles, robots, and insects has now become larger, science fiction-inspired sculptures all made from the same humble material that first sparked my curiosity.
I share this creative practice with schools, institutions, and foundations across the Philippines, guiding others to see how ordinary materials can tell extraordinary stories. I also conduct multiple workshops at the Metropolitan Museum of Manila under the program Material Transformations: Turning Cardboard into Art.
My work has been featured on television programs such as i-Bilib and AHA! on GMA 7, and Team YeY on ABS-CBN. I graduated cum laude with a Bachelor of Fine Arts, major in Industrial Design, from the University of the Philippines Diliman (2025). I live in San Jose del Monte, Bulacan, where I continue to explore the balance between play, design, and sustainability through art.
Sebastian Cacho
Kendall Colindon is a Las Piñas-based artist, born in '95. A Fine Arts graduate from the Technological University of the Philippines, he is an active member of ROOM111 Collective. Kendall’s art explores contemporary themes, weaving stories of everyday life and surroundings. He aims to evoke realization in those who experience his work - that art is a reflection of its creator's history, telling tales that linger. Seeking someone to share this journey, appreciate the stories behind the strokes, and maybe even inspire the next piece.
Kendall Colindon
Lorebert “Maralita” Comision
Esteemed visual artist Lorebert “Maralita” Comision makes powerful portrayals of vulnerable communities, drawing from his roots in Northern Samar. His works seamlessly merge spiritual themes with working-class resilience, offering solace and hope. Intricate religious symbols and motifs are woven into portraits of everyday life, illuminating faith's role amidst hardship. Dominant orange hues signify renewal and spiritual rebirth. Maralita's poignant art confronts viewers with harsh realities, fostering empathy. His creations testify to the resilience and dignity of marginalized groups, sharing their overlooked stories.
Grace Corpuz is a visual artist and a cultural worker advocate. She earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts Major in Advertising from the Far Eastern University. She is also an active member of Tambisan sa Sining.
Born and based in Quezon City, Grace Corpuz creates mixed media pieces that serve as literal signs of the times. She utilizes found objects and creates new dimensions in her artworks, fleshing out tableaus seemingly culled from true to life news stories. Corpuz touches on pressing issues pervading the national consciousness in her works, playing with assemblage as a highly effective form that easily elicits reaction from her audiences, referencing undercurrents of agitation and transforming that energy into tangible expositions that bare social ills.
GRACE CORPUZ
Oscar A. Floirendo received his Bachelor of Fine Arts (Painting) at the University of the Philippines, Diliman. He has exhibited in galleries and museums such as Manila Contemporary, MO Space, Ion Art Gallery (Singapore), Cultural Center of the Philippines and the Philippine National Museum. His works are often mixed media and process-driven, revolving on social and contemporary commentaries. He was a selected participant in the 2009 Sungduan 5, a national exhibition by the National Commission for Culture and the Arts. He was awarded as one of the Top Ten Mindanao artists in 2007 and 2009; and won the Juror’s Choice Award of Excellence of the Philippine Art Awards in 2008. He is the Team Leader of the Siete Pesos collaboration group that participated in the 2013 Singapore Biennale. He is a graduate, top of the class in the first batch of the Graduate Diploma for Teaching Arts NCCA Program in Xavier University. He is also a recent graduate of the Certificate Program for Design Competency and DTI OTP MODA Manlilikha Designers’ Course.
He is currently the OIC curator of Museo de Oro, Xavier University-Ateneo de Cagayan, Cagayan de Oro City, and President of CAG-CdeO Arts Guild, the oldest visual arts group in Cagayan de Oro.
oscar floirendo
Bayani Galera is an award-winning visual hailing from Malabon City. He earned his BFA in Advertising Arts degree from University of the East Caloocan.
His current body of work revolves around concepts of educational landscapes which is a huge part of his life growing up up to present. School memoirs are something very dear to Bayani as he grew up constantly moving between cities and transferring schools. He wouldn’t have as many constant friends because of this, but what he treasures most are the stories and memories he has within his former schools. And as fate would have had it, Bayani also had his first job in a university and his wife happens to be a college instructor as well. Aside from his personal attachments to schools, Bayani believes that using educational landscapes as his subjects is his way of communicating and talking to his audience, as his subjects are easily relatable, as everyone has their own school story to tell. He also advocates on the importance of education for all and hopes that his works would also convey this message to his viewers
BAYANI GALERA
A public health physician by profession, my artistic journey is deeply intertwined with my work in the grassroots communities of the Dinagat Islands in Mindanao. While my foundation in the visual arts began with painting in 2012—sparked by an Art Appreciation class at the University of Santo Tomas (UST)—my creative practice underwent a profound transformation in the wake of natural disaster.
Though my early work in painting earned several local and international recognitions, the turning point for my artistic evolution was the onslaught of Typhoon Odette in December 2021. Witnessing the devastation firsthand, I felt a visceral need to respond to the loss. I began gathering wood from fallen trees across the islands, marking the start of my transition into sculpture and woodworking. This shift allowed me to process the trauma of the storm, turning the wreckage of the landscape into vessels of memory and resilience.
In 2023, my exploration of this medium was recognized when I was named a Semi-finalist for the Metrobank Art & Design Excellence (MADE) National Competition in the Philippines. This milestone reinforced my commitment to bridging the gap between my medical vocation and my artistic calling.
Today, I continue to evolve my style. My work stands as an ongoing dialogue between the precision of medicine and the raw, transformative power of salvaged wood.
Juan Javier Garchitorena
Lino Berro Jamisola (a.k.a. PIPESMAN)
Batang Maynila, nag-elementarya sa Moises Salvador Elementary School Manila at naging pundasyon ang kaalaman sa TLE sapagkat dito ko natutunan gumamit ng mga akmang hand tools at power tools. Sunod ay nagtapos ng high school sa Ramon Magsaysay España Manila at nagpatuloy ang paglawak ng kaalaman sa pamamagitan ng vocational courses/subjects gaya ng handicraft, woodworking, metal works, plumbing, joints and splices, painting at drafting mula 1st year hanggang 4th year. Ginusto kong ipagpatuloy at iprofessionalize ang aking mga ginagawa kaya'’pumasok ako sa kolehiyo na may kursong Fine Arts at nagtapos bilang isang Alagad ng Sining sa Technological University of the Philippines Manila.
Gabriella (she/they) is a poet, fiber artist, slow fashion creator, and editor of Cher, a queer art publication. Gabriella explores gender, religion, and ecopoetics in her art. As a slow fashion creator, she seeks to practice sustainability by upcycling clothes: she embroiders her art over the stains and holes from donated clothing. She incorporates single use plastics in her art by embroidering directly onto them or turning plastic into yarn for crochet.
Gabriella Lindsay
Glenn Martinez is a Filipino assemblage artist and storyteller whose works transform found objects into poetic constructions of memory and meaning. Working with relics, antique fragments, and everyday materials, Martinez builds layered compositions that recall reliquaries, retablos, and cabinets of curiosity and spaces where nostalgia, faith, and cultural history converge.
A chronicler of Philippine heritage, Martinez began his creative journey through his long-running blog Traveler on Foot, where he documented folk traditions, sacred sites, and vanishing crafts. This fascination with history and storytelling evolved into a visual practice rooted in collecting and reinterpreting pre-loved objects and disparate fragments. Each assemblage becomes an “object of memory,” a meditation on how personal and collective histories endure through time.
His art reflects an intuitive order amid maximalist detail, exploring themes of immortality, belief, and transcendence, often referencing colonial memory, and the Filipino devotion to the spiritual, sacred and sentimental.
Martinez has exhibited in independent and institutional venues, including Imahica Art Gallery, Altro Mondo Creative Space, and his first solo show, Winged Victories at Richard Buxani Studio in Cavite. His assemblages invite viewers to rediscover the timelessness in the forgotten and to see in every object a vessel of history, spirit, and imagination.
Glenn Martinez
Chop Querijero’s practice explores the quiet material histories of everyday life—urban ephemera, coastal debris, and forms shaped by natural and human forces. Through sculpture and painting, he transforms these ordinary materials into biomorphic objects that invite slow looking and subtle shifts in perception.
Beginning with assemblage and extending into painting, the work traces the small textures of routine rather than grand events. He is drawn to how overlooked things reveal larger narratives of place, memory, and lived experience. His aim is to let modest objects open into wider worlds, allowing abstract realism to surface the stories embedded in the things we move through and return to.
Chop Querijero
Madel Yu is a graduate of Industrial Design from the University of Santo Tomas (UST) and the co-founder and woodworker behind ANYU Handicrafts. Her work explores creativity and enjoyment through transforming scrap and upcycled materials into something new.
As a child, Madel dreamed of becoming an astronaut. That sense of wonder later took shape in sculptural robots made from scrap wood and discarded materials.
When a mentor gave her wood offcuts, it marked the beginning of a practice rooted in transformation, giving rise to the “AbuBOTS” collection—shaped by her realization that materials, whether new or old, are not limitations but avenues for imagination and creativity.
Inspired by books, games, and films, her work is guided by emotion rather than trend. Each piece is named and given a date of birth, acknowledging its moment of creation.
Central to her practice is the belief that materials carry stories, and that nothing is ever truly waste—guided by the principle: “from scrap to craft; no scrap left behind.”