Upcoming Exhibition

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Manuel Ocampo

(b. 1965- Philippines)

Multiple award-winning painter Manuel Ocampo (b. 1965, Philippines) is known for his frequent and strategic stylistic drifts in response to new contexts and subject matter. His shows are often constructed around contradictory tendencies, elaborating discrepancies between what a painting appears to be and how it behaves in relation to the structures that legitimate its appearance. He always embraces sudden shifts of style and emphasis. He paints, but doubt is created as to whether any particular medium is the solution.

The artist has been a vital presence on the international art scene for over two decades now; his works were presented in two of the most important European art events, the Venice Biennale (1993) and Documenta IX (1992). In the early 1990s, he participated in the iconic exhibition “Helter Skelter: L.A. Art in the 1990s” at The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (1992).

Public collections include MOCA Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; MINCARs Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid; Fonds National d’Art Contemporain, Paris; Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Japan; and MUDAM Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, Luxembourg.

Oil on Canvas
Commissioning in Process

This series presents paintings currently in development for the ‘Isang Dipang Langit.’ exhibition. Each oil on canvas varies in scale and format, together forming a cohesive body of work.

Manuel Ocampo’s painting philosophy rests on a deliberate clash of the sacred and the profane, using loaded imagery-from Catholic iconography to colonial emblems, swastikas, and cartoon figures-to expose the fragility and corruption of symbols of power. By subverting these icons of authority, Ocampo destabilizes meaning itself, turning reverence into grotesque parody and solemnity into absurd humor. His works resist purity, embracing hybridity and contradiction as a way to mirror the postcolonial Filipino condition: fragmented, messy, and constantly negotiating between Western impositions and local realities.

Deploying an arsenal of art-historical and literary references, religious and popular iconography, Ocampo’s complex paintings weave together various visual vocabularies, creating implied meaning through accumulation and its interrelationships. Presented to viewers in a way that remains deliberately opaque, the symbols and its formal properties that render them - their vivid colours, energetic gestures and course brushstrokes - open up a spectrum of interpretations that defies easy definitions