In San Diego, Filipino artists in diaspora explore migration and identity
This June, the vibrant city of San Diego, California, will play host to a compelling new art exhibition that speaks to the pulse of migration, memory, and meaning. Titled “Dayo”—a Tagalog word meaning “foreigner,” “stranger,” or “immigrant”—the show gathers the works of contemporary Filipino and Filipino-American artists whose roots stretch across oceans but remain firmly grounded in heritage.
Opening at the Thumbprint Gallery, “Dayo” is not just an exhibit—it is a mobile tapestry of identity, movement, and reinvention. A traveling show that aims to trace and retrace the footprints of Filipino creatives in diaspora, “Dayo” confronts the boundaries of nation and self, drawing together a diverse constellation of painters, sculptors, filmmakers, and mixed-media visionaries.
At the heart of this constellation are several alumni of the University of Santo Tomas (UST), whose works illuminate not only the gallery walls but also the narrative of Filipino resilience and artistic brilliance abroad.
Among them is the formidable Caesar Joseph “CJ” Tañedo, one of the Philippines’ finest realist painters. Trained in classical oil techniques at the UST College of Fine Arts and Design, Tañedo has developed a visual lexicon that melds the old masters’ gravitas with the urgent tensions of contemporary Philippine life. His meticulous brushwork and layered Flemish technique imbue his subjects with a haunting luminosity.
Works like “Dog Show,” a satirical tableau of political posturing, reveal his deft handling of allegory—a narrative mode that stretches back to colonial critique and forward to global conversations. Tañedo’s paintings do not merely reflect Filipino society; they interrogate it, exposing its wounds and absurdities with both tenderness and bite.
Art as conversation
Equally arresting is the work of Rogin “Djinn” Tallada, a former art editor of the UST Varsitarian campus newspaper, whose sketches and paintings pulsate with emotional charge and social commentary. Now based in Singapore as an art director, Tallada remains rooted in the Philippines through his distinctive crosshatched lines, which he calls waso-waso. For him, art is a conversation—between artist and artwork, creator, and creation.
“Each piece offers a message,” he notes, underscoring a dynamic where the canvas speaks back. His work thrives on the surreal and the satirical, inviting viewers to read between the lines, to “feel” rather than merely look. His exaggerated, often whimsical renderings of social realities challenge our habits of perception, making the familiar feel strange—and therefore worth a second glance.
Joining Tañedo and Tallada are fellow UST alumni artists whose practices span genres and geographies. Reinald “Banwa” Laurel, born in 1980 and a UST Painting major, taps into the subconscious in works that blend surrealism, expressionism, and social realism. His canvases reveal a fascination with inner distortion and the search for dignity in a fractured world.
Cleng Sumagaysay, who earned her Communication Arts degree from UST before migrating to the US, adds a cross-disciplinary dimension to the show, integrating her academic and artistic backgrounds to reflect the emotional currents of transpacific life.
Nonie Cruzado, now based in Colorado, rounds out this UST contingent with introspective paintings that draw from personal philosophy, bridging Manila’s memory and the American landscape with quiet intensity.
Murmuration
While the UST alumni bring deep artistic pedigree to “Dayo,” they are in strong company. The exhibit also features filmmaker Benito Bautista, multimedia artist Miko Aguilar (also known as Qolaj), painter Jessica Yambao, and sculptor Grace Pimentel Simbulan. Together, they form a collective of artists bound not by medium, but by migration—a shared condition of distance, longing, and cultural redefinition.
“Dayo” is not a monolith. It is a murmuration—individual voices moving in complex choreography, guided by memory and dream, by trauma and transformation. Whether rooted in the Philippines or scattered across the diaspora, the participating artists challenge monolithic depictions of Filipino identity. Their works—spanning oil on canvas, film, installations, and more—reimagine what it means to be Filipino in the 21st century, in places as far from the archipelago as San Diego.
As “Dayo” travels from city to city, so too does the conversation it stirs. For now, San Diego becomes the staging ground for this journey, and the Thumbprint Gallery, a portal. Through the brushstrokes of Tañedo, the pencil lines of Tallada, and the eclectic visions of their peers, the exhibit invites audiences not only to witness but also to participate in the ongoing narrative of Filipino identity—unfixed, in motion, and unmistakably alive.
