RODEL TAPAYA

b.1980, Montalban, Philippines

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At the heart of Rodel Tapaya’s work is his ongoing amalgamation of folk narrative and contemporary reality within the framework of memory and history. Utilizing a range of media - from large acrylic on canvasses to the exploration of under-glass painting, traditional crafts, diorama, and drawing - Tapaya filters his observations of the world through folktales and pre-colonial historical research,  creating whimsical montages of his characters.

 

Selected solo exhibitions include: “Random Numbers”, Tang Contemporary Art (Hong Kong SAR, China,2021); “Myths and Truths”, Tang Contemporary Art, Beijing (China, 2018); “Urban Labyrinth”, Ayala Museum, Manila (Philippines, 2018); “Rodel Tapaya: New Art from the Philippines”, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra (Australia, 2017); “Rodel Tapaya”, Galerie der Stadt Sindelfingen (Germany, 2016). Selected group exhibitions include: “Fragment with Dusty Light” Tang Contemporary Art, Seoul (Korea, 2022);  “Memory, Playfulness, and Stream of Consciousness”, Tang Contemporary Art (Hong Kong SAR, China, 2022); “Falling”, Tang Contemporary Art, Beijing (China, 2022); Heavenly Bodies in the South, He Xiangning Art Museum, Shenzhen (China, 2020); “Far Away So Close!”, ARNDT Agency, Berlin (Germany, 2019).

 

His work is held in the following museum and institutional collections: Art Gallery of New South Wales, National Gallery of Australia, Tokyo Mori Art Museum, Singapore Art Museum, Philippines Bencab Museum, Philippines Ateneo Art Gallery, Philippines Pinto Art Museum, Central Bank of the Philippines. Rodel Tapaya was awarded the coveted Top Prize in the Nokia Art Awards, which allowed him to pursue intensive drawing and painting courses at Parsons School of Design in New York and the University of Helsinki in Finland. In 2011, he won a landmark achievement for a Filipino artist by winning the Signature Art Prize given by the Asia-Pacific Breweries Foundation and the Singapore Art Museum. He was also among the Thirteen Artists Awardee of the Cultural Center of the Philippines in 2012.