November moves like an afterimage, or a lingering visual burn across Manila, Hong Kong, and Singapore. The shows this month feel less like pronouncements and more like internal confrontations, through spaces and objects, as artists turn the gaze inward, revealing what still stirs beneath the surface.
In Manila, Eric Bico finds healing in the act of documenting, tracing memory through the lens until it softens into acceptance. Victoria Montinola turns the daily longings of motherhood into a kind of poetry, as a homemaker’s meditations reimagined as an artist-mother’s visual vernacular of tenderness. Kitty Kaburo continues her investigation of decay and distortion, staging her own archaeology of time, where dust and data collapse into a single, layered language of erosion.
In Hong Kong, Ciane Xavier’s “Sanctuary of Becoming” oscillates between flesh and mechanism, between human emotion and technological mimicry—a surreal theater of tension and contrast. While in Singapore, Leslie de Chavez’s “A Kiss on the Ground” foregrounds his reflections on Filipino postcolonial identity, dissecting devotion, spectacle, and the contradictions of faith and power.
Back in Manila, the group and solo exhibitions, “Internal Dialogue,” “When Infinite Speed Meets an Immovable Force,” “Eternal Surge of the Light between Days,” and “Chorus of Journeys” circle around the same questions: How do we hold stillness in a world always in collision? How do we listen through the noise?
These shows are some of the year’s small yet fierce gestures that remind us art doesn’t just hold a mirror to the world, both outside and within. It seeks to repair, reframe, make peace with, and even forgive it.
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“Mga Munting Alaala” by Eric Bico
Nov. 7 to Dec. 20 at Tarzeer Pictures, 2288 Chino Roces Avenue Extension, Makati
“Nang mag-umpisa ako sa photography, nakatuon ako sa kung paano ipakikilala ang sarili at iparamdam ang gusto kong sabihin. Hindi ko inasahang dahil sa paglilitrato ay lalawak ang aking pagtingin at pagunawa sa ibang tao, maging sa sarili ko. Sa paglilitrato, nahanap ko ang unti-unting pag-hilom.” – Eric Bico
“Dusty Set, Wet Heat – Peel, Lag, and Repeat” by Kitty Kaburo
Oct. 25 to Nov. 22 at The Drawing Room, Karrivin Plaza, Chino Roces, Makati
“On the surface, Kitty Kaburo’s latest set of works seems to harken back to her previous flirtations with how time and the elements alter even the most solid objects and realities.
But the collection ‘Dusty Set, Wet Heat – Peel, Lag, and Repeat’—although replete with detritus, peeling veneers, discarded props, dusty olden set pieces and forgotten, abandoned or orphaned items—this time uses the aesthetics of contemporary digital processing and pass-through layers to both ground the works in the present and also situate them out of time.” – JP Agcaoili, exhibition notes
“Sanctuary of Becoming” by Ciane Xavier
Nov. 28 to Dec. 7 at deTour 2025, PMQ, Central, Hong Kong
“The Sanctuary is not a literal building, but a space for emotional transformation. The installation features hanging ceramic heads, each expressing a distinct emotional state, grief, awe, quiet joy, and more. Among them is a single animatronic head. It subtly moves, blinking, shifting expression, serving as a technological echo of its ceramic counterparts. This quiet motion invites reflection on the boundary between human and artificial, permanence and simulation, emotion and mimicry.” – Ciane Xavier
“Home” by Victoria Montinola
Nov. 6 to Dec. 6 at West Gallery, 48 West Avenue, Quezon City
“My work explores the role of the visual artist as a mother, and how her position as a homemaker shapes her perception of the world through the longings of motherhood.”– Victoria Montinola
“Internal Dialogue” curated by Emilio Preysler Dizon
Opened on Nov. 8 at Provenance Gallery, South Park Plaza 2/F, Paseo de Magallanes Commercial Center, Makati City
“We all have our own inner dialogue—that constant, private conversation that shapes how we see ourselves and the world around us. What’s interesting about the theme of this exhibition is how each artist interprets that process of introspection differently: some through silence, some through chaos, some through reflection.
In a time when we’re surrounded by so much outside noise—from society, politics, our environment, and social media—it feels more vital than ever to pause and listen to our own voice, in order to unpack what goes on around us and within us.
‘Internal Dialogue’ is a reminder that self-connection is not just personal, but universal—something we can all relate to and connect with.”– Emilio Preysler Dizon, Director, Provenance Art Gallery
“A Kiss on the Ground (Halik sa Lupa)” by Leslie de Chavez
Happening from Oct. 26 to Dec. 7 at Gajah Gallery, 39 Keppel Road, Tanjong Pagar Distripark, #03-04, Singapore
“Foundational to de Chavez’s practice is an unflinching critique of power and its abuse by individuals and institutions, along with an enduring curiosity about human behaviour and its contradictions. ‘A Kiss on the Ground’ plays with paradoxes and teases out tensions: the feasting for a fasting, the ‘excesses’ of sacrifice, the pageantry amidst poverty.” – Joyce Toh, Gajah Gallery
“When Infinite Speed Meets an Immovable Force” curated by Janice Liuson-Young
Opens on Nov. 15 at Brixton Art Space, Pasig City
“This show explores the idea of collision—between momentum and resistance—the forces that shape both our physical world and our personal lives. I’ve long been fascinated by how tension and impact can take form in art, how material and movement can speak to those moments when energy meets opposition and something entirely new is created.”– Janice Liuson-Young, visual artist and exhibition curator
“Eternal Surge of the Light between Days” by Geremy Samala
Nov. 15 to Dec. 6 at Modeka, Warehouse 20A La Fuerza 1, Chino Roces Avenue, Makati City
“I think of these paintings as quiet storms—dense, luminous, full of motion, but always reaching toward calm. They’re about the small spaces of clarity that appear between one day and the next—those moments of light that don’t ask to be named, only seen.” – Geremy Samala
“Chorus of Journeys” by Isaiah Cacnio
Nov. 4 to 20 at Rojo Galerie, Robins Design Center, Ortigas
“This opens a new chapter in my journey as a visual artist, one that brings me closer to the essence of what I create. Each work grows more personal, shaped by the rhythm of my own experiences and the flow of nature itself. It is a deeper exploration of movement, connection, and the many forms that art can take.” – Isaiah Cacnio
“Hail Holy Eyes” by Jigger Cruz, curated by Norman Crisologo
Opens on Nov. 19 at the Metropolitan Museum of Manila, 30th St., Taguig City
“Over a hundred artworks from 2007 to present,” announced a preview video posted by the Metropolitan Museum of Manila, featuring snippets of saints’ visages, skulls, and Cruz’s impressive, thick, impastoed layers of paint.
