Start the year slow with these art shows
The beginning of the year is an apt time to take things a little slower and actually sit with what we’re seeing. Whether you’re easing back into gallery hopping or looking to absorb work at your own pace, these are some art exhibitions to linger over as the year begins, before the flurry of art month in February.
There are, of course, many shows happening around the city beyond this list, too. Silverlens Manila presents the exhibition “Merging” by Lou Lim, with West Gallery presenting even more thought-provoking work in “How the Frame Decides” by Audrey Lukban.
For a family-friendly day of art, Museo Pambata reopens its Hiraya Room with the installation “Dwellings” by Isabel and Alfredo Aquilizan at the end of the month on Jan. 31. The work takes the form of a dense, dystopian cityscape that invites viewers to move through and imagine.
As the year opens, these shows are a starting point, and not a checklist, to ease into another year absolutely brimming with the promise of Manila’s evolving art scene.
1. “Kahapon Muli Bukas” by Imelda Cajipe Endaya at Silverlens Manila
Battered suitcases, an ironing board bearing the image of the Sorrowful Mother, and a blouse marked with the word “dignidad.” These are just some personal items among luggage, uniforms, and Catholic paraphernalia, arranged by renowned feminist artist Endaya to echo the “ordinariness and intimacy” of everyday domestic spaces.
First shown in 1995 at the NCCA Gallery as “Filipina: Domestic Helper (DH),” the groundbreaking work has traveled across the world, making known the harsh realities faced by Filipina migrant domestic workers. These were made tangible through objects donated by the workers themselves.
Nearly three decades later, her work returns, marking its long-awaited homecoming with renewed reflection on labor and the dignity it carries. As you walk among the carefully curated objects, you can sense the personal histories of Filipina lives lived far from home.
Jan. 10 to Feb. 14, 2026, Silverlens Manila, 2263 Don Chino Roces Ave. Ext. Makati City
2. “Breathe, Sigh…” by Geraldine Javier at West Gallery
In this new body of work, Javier moves away from acrylics and instead works entirely with ecoprinting, using pigments extracted from leaves and flowers. The shift in material is both practical and philosophical, as the artist confronts climate anxiety and personal unease through a slower, more deliberate process.
Through this show, the artist continues to assert art-making as a form of environmental action.
Jan. 8 to Feb. 7, 2026, West Gallery, 48 West Ave. Quezon City
3. “The Poets and the Mundane” by Veronica Peralejo at Mo_Space
This exhibition continues Peralejo’s “Tripping Nature” series with a focus on clay modeling and assemblage. Through intuitive sculpting, Peralejo creates forms that hover between the abstract and the familiar, shaped by touch, repetition, and subtle variation.
“I am always drawn to my haptic perceptual ability that leads to a meditative process,” she writes on Instagram. “It is repetitive, but results come with variations—a practice of intuitive mindfulness when sculpting automatically becomes a sort of tracing back dreams, or preserving faint memories of interesting things.”
Jan. 10 to Feb. 8, 2026, Mo_Space, 3rd Floor, MOs Design Building, 9th Ave. Bonifacio High Street, Taguig City
4. “Urgent Daydreams” at Modeka
Featuring a roster of young and emerging artists, from fine art students from various universities to fresh graduates, the group exhibition “Urgent Daydreams” offers a space to encounter new voices and early practices.
Exhibition notes by Kimberly Fabregas reflect on how daydreaming is often dismissed, even as it fuels imagination and creative risk. “We seldom look at the stars, with everything going on,” Fabregas writes. “When you pay attention to your desires and less to external voices, will the night sky get clearer?”
The show encourages artists to pay attention to their inner impulses, even in the face of uncertainty and an unseen audience. It’s the kind of exhibition where you might spot a name worth remembering in the future.
Jan. 10 to Feb. 7, 2026, Modeka Art, Warehouse 20A La Fuerza Plaza 1, 2241 Don Chino Roces Ave. Makati City
5. “Echoes & Conversations” by Rachel le Roux, curated by Ayni Nuyda at Fashion Interiors
British Filipino artist le Roux presents a series of soft, considered works that center on the female form. Fabric, movement, and posture become key elements as the body is rendered in elegant yet restrained compositions.
The portraits feel intimate without being literal, exploring presence, identity, and the relationship with one’s body, complemented by the artist’s distinct depictions of undulating fabric.
Jan. 17 to Feb. 15, 2026, Fashion Interiors, 2307 Chino Roces Ave. Makati City
6. “The Myth of Significance” by E.S.L. Chen at Improv Gallery
Chen questions the human impulse to assign meaning to everything. The self-taught artist and former editorial and portrait photographer blends analog and digital techniques to explore action, intuition, and risk.
The artist writes, “‘The Myth of Significance’ is my act of casting doubt on the meaning-making machines in our brains. It is my act of letting go of who I think I am and who society tells me to be. The only logic that I consciously employ on a daily basis is mitigating risk. The rest is action.”
Letting go of fixed identities and trusting instinct over overthinking, the abstractions appear raw, while searching, grounded in movement rather than explanation.
Nov. 29, 2025 to Jan. 24, 2026, Improv Gallery, 5th Floor Katinko Building, New York Ave. corner EDSA, Quezon City
7. “Nothing, Everything, and Something’s” by Rap Carloto, curated by Norman Crisologo at Artinformal
Carloto’s latest body of work revolves around the feeling of being overwhelmed with information, where personal memory and social reality blur into one space.
Set within a single space, the canvas is layered with fragment over fragment of public life, such as street signs, people, and multiple objects, from blackboards to fountains.
Using photographs he took himself, often while cycling, Carloto introduces blurred passages and gaps that suggest fragmented memory and uneven time. The works resist fixed meanings, allowing viewers to project their own experiences into what is shown and what is left unresolved.
Opens Jan. 15, 2026, Artinformal Gallery, The Karrivin Plaza, 2316 Chino Roces Ave. Ext. Makati City
Letting the eye wander
From meditative clay forms to objects with weighty histories and a range of thought-provoking paintings, these exhibitions invite different ways of slowing down, often with various media.
Whether you visit just one show or hop on to many, as always, art offers ways of slowing down to let the eye wander, with these exhibitions leaving room for plenty more work by Filipino artists to discover as the year unfolds.
