The Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) proudly announces the recipients of the prestigious 2024 Thirteen Artists Awards (TAA), which honors young visual artists whose innovative practice has contributed to the development and expansion of contemporary Philippine art.
The awardees for 2024 are: Catalina Africa, Denver Garza, Russ Ligtas, Ella Mendoza, Henrielle Baltazar Pagkaliwangan, Issay Rodriguez, Luis Antonio Santos, Joshua Serafin, Jel Suarez, Tekla Tamoria, Derek Tumala, Vien Valencia, and Liv Vinluan.
A multidisciplinary artist, Africa considers shapeshifting and earth channeling to be her primary modes of expression. Working with various media, her artworks are invocations to the natural landscape.
A mental health worker prior to pursuing arts, Garza contemplates the meaning and comforts in life, as well as its uncertainties, through the psyche and the psychosocial, in his art practice.
Cebu-born artist Ligtas draws inspiration from various alter egos, serving as conduits for his explorations of the Filipino body as an expanding mythological matrix and a living historical, geopolitical, and anthropological artifact.
Ceramic artist Mendoza started her practice with functional wares in her early years, and later evolved into a play on contemporary counterparts of traditional vessels, which materialized in her conceptual, sculptural, and installation works.
Pagkaliwangan explores stories behind mundane yet indispensable objects to examine Philippine history and material culture. Drawing from natural history illustration and taxonomy, she documents personal and historical narratives through hand-pulled prints and drawings.
Rodriguez centers her art practice on themes of humanism and ecology.
Multidisciplinary
Santos examines memory, entropy, isolation, and longing through his paintings and photography.
Exploring themes of transmigration and queer politics, Bacolod-born multidisciplinary artist Serafin combines dance, performance, visual arts, and choreography.
Self-taught artist Suarez approaches collage as a way of reading, reinterpreting, and responding to visual phenomena by restating these images as open codes and as new texts in the process of becoming.
After two years of working in the corporate sector, Tamoria pursued tailoring at a local technical school, allowing her to further her practice of working with textiles. She uses readily available materials and takes inspiration from diverse sources, ranging from costume design to fractal patterns in nature.
Valencia situates his work at the intersection of community, time, site, process, and anthropology. He works on alternative archive projects, tied together by an interest in challenging traditional methods of archiving.
History remains the singular, defining cornerstone of Vinluan’s works. Her art practice investigates death and mortality, the cyclicality of histories, the inconsistencies of human character and behavior, and the passage of time.
The awardees were selected out of 108 nominations through a meticulous and rigorous evaluation process.
The selection committee, consisting of Phyllis Zaballero (Thirteen Artists 1978), Antipas Delotavo (1990), Buen Calubayan (2009), Wawi Navarroza (2012), and CCP VAMD officer-in-charge Rica Estrada Uson, reviewed the nominees’ portfolios.
Now in its 54th year, the triennial awards began as a curatorial project of the CCP Museum, led by its first curator Roberto Chabet, aimed at showcasing the works of Filipino artists who sought to “restructure, restrengthen, and renew artmaking and art thinking that lend viability to Philippine art.”
Raymundo Albano, the subsequent director of the CCP Museum and Non-Theater Operations, transformed the CCP TAA into the awards program recognized by the Filipino arts community today.
Visit the Thirteen Artists website thirteenartists.culturalcenter.gov.ph.