CLARENCE CHUN (b. 1975, Philippines) primarily works in abstraction to reveal narratives hinged on the artist’s relationship with the places he had lived, particularly the influence of the bodies of water as a dominant force in his dynamic approach to image-making. Chun meticulously executes compositions that characterize his ability to visually articulate a momentum--- narrating the speed of waves and currents of seas, oceans, rivers as he reflects on the lives, he had lived near them. Having spent part of his childhood in Leyte, Philippines, and later, living as an adult in Hawaii, Chun’s body of works is charged with the technical aspects of abstraction inclined to depict biographical narratives extracted from his personal history as a first-generation immigrant. Thus, using painting to portray identity through the layers of texture applied on the canvas, which ironically seems flat from afar but entangled in many layers when observed closely.

In 1999, Chun was awarded the Ellen Battell Stoekel Fellowship from Yale University School of Art, and, had later received his BFA in Painting (cum laude) from the University of Houston School of Art and his MFA in Painting from the School of Visual Arts in New York. Chun is also the recipient of the John Young Artist Award from the Honolulu Museum of Art in 2013. His works have been exhibited widely in Southeast Asia, in the United States, and in Europe and are also in the permanent collection of the Honolulu Museum of Art (USA), Hawai’i State Art Museum (USA), and National Museum of Fine Arts (Manila, PH).

CIAN DAYRIT (b. 1989, Philippines) challenges dominant perspectives of power and space through textile, painting, sculpture, and installation. His works explore colonialism and ethnography; archaeology, history, and mythology. Dayrit subverts the language and workings of institutions such as the state, museums, and the military to understand and visualize the contradictions these platforms or formats are built. His long-term projects and research unfold as long-drawn serial narratives, mapping events to interrogate imperial histories, the expanding lexicon of state terror, and the foundations of the neoliberal economy that deconstruct common practices of ownership and environmental justice.

Dayrit received the Ateneo Art Awards Fernando Zóbel Prizes for Visual Art (2017) and is a Cultural Center of the Philippines Thirteen Artists Awards (2018) recipient. He completed artist residencies at Bellas Artes Projects in Bataan, Philippines; La Trobe Art Institute in Bendigo, Australia; and at Gasworks in London, England. From 2017 – 2019, he participated in the New Museum Triennial “Songs for Sabotage” in New York, Dhaka Art Summit in Bangladesh, and Göteborg Biennial in Sweden; group exhibitions at Para Site, Hong Kong, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, and the Metropolitan Museum of Manila. Dayrit’s works were presented at the 11th Berlin Biennale and the 13th edition of Gwangju Biennale. He will be participating at the 23rd edition of the Sydney Biennale in 2022. His works are in the permanent collection of Kadist (San Francisco), Lopez Museum (Manila), and Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (Madrid).

KRISTOFFER ARDEÑA (b. 1976, Philippines) lives and works between Bacolod (Philippines) and Madrid (Spain). Through documentation, production, and writing, Ardeña contributes to the global movement of neo-tropicality - within a movement of cultural self-awareness transpiring through the 'majority world', climatic identity discovers its own cultural products and embraces them. Ardeña received his BFA in Painting and Drawing from the Academy of Art College in San Francisco, USA as a full tuition scholar.

Individual projects include exhibitions and presentations at Museo Carrillo Gil in Mexico; Selasar Sunaryo Art Space, Ruang Mes 65 and Cemeti Art House (Indonesia); Vargas Museum and the Cultural Center of the Philippines in Manila; (Philippines); Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo Museum (Madrid); La Conservera Centro de Arte Contemporáneo in Murcia (Spain). He has also participated in collective projects, among them the 3rd Bucharest Biennale (Romania), 3rd Guangzhou Triennale (China), Konstholl C in Stockholm (Sweden), Caixa Forum in Barcelona and La Casa Encendida in Madrid, MUSAC in León (Spain), Casino Forum d’Art Contemporain (Luxembourg), Apexart in New York (USA), Museo Ex Teresa Arte Actual (Mexico) and the Museo de Arte Moderno in Medellin (Colombia). He is the founder of MILF (Moving Image Lab Filipinas) curatorial platform and the co-founder of Photoma (http://www.photoma.info/), an initiative on Philippine contemporary photography. Ardeña was featured in international fairs such as ARCOMadrid (Spain), Art Dubai (UAE), and SEA Focus (Singapore).