AFTERGLOW: EDSA at Forty

Dengcoy Miel
Noel Rosales
Jose Tence Ruiz
Pinggot Zulueta

Opening-February 22, 2026
vMeme Contemporary 
Estancia, Pasig

The artwork reflects a nation suspended in waiting. At its center is a Filipina woman, rendered as a witness to history—her body bearing the weight of decades since the EDSA People Power Revolution. She waits not in hope, but in endurance. The promised transformation never fully arrives; instead, cycles of politicking, poverty, and crime seep into everyday life, normalized and inescapable.

In the foreground, a man lies exposed and diminished, a symbolic victim of injustice and a stand-in for those silenced by systems meant to protect them. The work offers no resolution, only a quiet reckoning with how a revolution remembered continues to coexist with an unhealed present.

TITIG SA KAWALAN

48x70 inches 
Acrylic on Canvas

2026 

GOTHIC ROMANTIC
RED Gallery, 157 St Georges Rd
Fitzroy North, Melbourne 
Friday | 31 October | 6 - 8pm
Opening Night

29 October ~9 November 2025

CURATOR'S STATEMENT

Tammy Honey

Honey has curated artworks from each artist’s collection that embody the essence of the Gothic Romantic — works that evoke the beauty within life and death, light and dark, love and loss, and the emotional resonance found in their delicate balance.

Gothic Romantic brings together a group of contemporary artists whose artworks echo the aesthetic, thematic, and emotional undercurrents of the Gothic, Romantic, and Symbolist traditions — moving through shadow and splendour in an exploration of darkness, beauty, and mystery through a modern visual language. 

In this exhibition, life and death are not opposites but intertwined forces, each revealing the other’s fragile splendour. The works presented embrace melancholy and desire, decay and renewal, the sublime and the spectral. From the expressive mark of ink and paint to the tactile weight of clay and the luminescence of digital light, each artist traces a path through the emotional terrain of the Gothic imagination.

Together, these artists summon a space where emotion deepens into atmosphere — a celebration of the beautiful and the macabre, the eternal and the ephemeral. Gothic Romantic invites viewers to linger in the shadows, to find tenderness in darkness, and to rediscover wonder in the mysteries that surround us.

Andy McIntyre, Bella Insch, Francesca Goldspring, Freya Skarsgard, George Alamidis, James Annesley, Nick Stella, Pinggot Zulueta and Sandra Ann Minchin.

Artist Statement

Pinggot Zulueta’s works inhabit a space where the organic and the spectral intertwine. Through meticulous linework and dense, symbolic imagery, he explores themes of mortality, longing, and transformation. Rooted in personal memory and cultural mythologies, each drawing becomes a site of introspection -  where veiled figures, skeletal remnants, and entangled flora evoke both decay and sacred beauty. 

In this series, he approaches the gothic not merely as an aesthetic, but as an emotional landscape charged with ambiguity, spiritual unease, and the sublime. The red accents serve as visceral disruptions - signs of life, death, or desire -  punctuating the otherwise muted terrain of the soul. By confronting the shadowed recesses of the human condition, he invites viewers into a quiet reckoning with fragility, permanence, and the mysteries that outlive us.

HYMNS FROM THE FIRST QUARTER CENTURY

AUGUST 2025

GALERIE JOSE, QUEZON CITY 

PHILIPPINES

T H E V I S I O N A R Y

The Visionary asks: Is knowing the future a path to clarity or a labyrinth with no exit? Do they guide us forward, or are they lost within their own visions, unable to return?

T H E V I S I O N A R Y 

is a hymn for the unseen - a meditation on foresight, destiny, and the weight of knowing. It questions whether vision is a gift or a burden, whether those who see ahead lead the way or become lost in their own revelations. As part of Hymns from the First Quarter Century, this piece reflects on time’s unfolding verses, where the future hums softly in the present, waiting to be heard.

OBSKVRA

New Works by PINGGOT ZULUETA

9-30 March 2024

Art Cube Gallery                                                                                                                        Makati City, Philippines

 

“In the dark times, will there also be singing? Yes, there will also be singing. About the dark times.” -Bertolt Brecht

 In a world cloaked in darkness, the artist Pinggot Zulueta wields his ink pen as both a lamentation and invocation. In his solo exhibition of new works, Obskvra, the artist presents ten artworks that resonate with a powerful blend of artistic vision, social critique, and exhortation.

Obskvra is the fifth in a series of artworks by Pinggot Zulueta, which focuses on the existentiality of the human condition, his philosophical contemplations, and our infinite potential for survival. In 2016, his exhibition ‘Incepto’ had provided entry into the sublime thoughts of the artist’s soul. A year later, in ‘Ka.thar.sis’, his thoughtful reflection on alienation and solitude within unfamiliar environments was the central theme. In 2020, ‘Melankolia’ delved on understanding the inner self to achieve a sense of connection and harmony with one’s past. In 2022, ‘Infinitum’ accentuated an intense awareness of mortality, while urging viewers to make deliberate choices on what is truly important.

 The artist has excelled in various forms of art and within his works there is a wide range of genres and styles. His art dignifies his experience and universalizes it through a medium that dives deeply under the surface. The artist combines surrealistic elements and visually stunning images where black predominates over all colors. His use of symbols combined with intricate details and textures has produced artworks that are both haunting and beautiful. The choice of a more dispassionate and sober mode of expression, using ink pen and paper, is not unrelated to his inner struggle in the service of which his artworks are made.

 “My artistic process is characterized by the balance between a visual expression of what I see as well as personal influences. As an approach, repetitive layering using ink pen on paper continues until I feel a sense of harmony exists between the physical components and the evocative aspects of my artworks. I generate ideas through the artistic process itself. The unpredictable nature of layering – each step is a reaction to the one before - is a constant building up of an image and tearing it down. The more layers are added, the more thought-provoking the artwork becomes. This artistic process is also a metaphor for how I have been shaped by what I have experienced. “

 The artist’s works tend to be dark and almost monochrome save for the use of dramatic highlights – and present their subjects as fundamentally ungraspable and, inevitably, remain out of reach. His art is not about creating beautiful or enjoyable objects, nor is it about producing a pleasurable experience to delight the viewers. His artworks are designed to do quite the opposite – to cause us discomfort, to make us uneasy, or to make us feel the anguish and burden of existence.

 In Obskvra, the tension between the artist’s imagination and the overriding obligation to present the truth characterizes his works. His artworks convey darkness, mystery, and chaos. These are an extension of the artist’s subconscious which reveals what we already intimately know. He uses surreal symbols to depict the ideas and institutions, or temples of humanism, that our future has been invested in. The icons from which we drew our strengths now appear as esoteric characters, atrophied from within and turned into empty shells. His artworks have become an archival tool for resistance, a survival kit of imagination to retrieve and reclaim what has been lost.

 The exhibition is packed with artistic explorations – the central showcase, a four-panel piece, displays the artist’s skillful use of ink to produce detailed and intricate images that convey a sense of unease and psychological tension.

 Hereditas (Legacy)’ presents the ‘weight of the world’ which is symbolized by a colossal stone eclipsing the innocent visage of Infanta Margarita, echoing Velasquez's timeless portrayal. The black backdrop signifies the present, enveloped in the shadow of our choices. Amidst the decay of Earth, the artwork challenges viewers to confront the legacy we bequeath to future generations – a poignant reflection on the responsibility to unveil a sustainable and hopeful future for our grandchildren and the next generation.

The artist brings to our attention images that invoke a sense of urgency, if not in content, then invariably, in context. Faced with the fragmented and haunting elements of our past and present, how then do we construct a future?

‘Allegory of Rupture’ captures a poignant moment where an angel statue, symbolizing divine presence, rests against a dark foreground. The looming cumulus clouds suggest an impending event, or an imminent divine presence. This juxtaposition of celestial and sombre elements symbolizes the delicate juncture between the ephemeral and eternal.

This artwork delves into the transient nature of humanity and contemplates questions surrounding our finite existence. In it, the dark landscape looms, as so often, a visual image truly speaks louder than words.

 Art invokes something in the human spirit that bolsters the soul in the toughest times and gives some sense of peace and purpose. The artist incorporates this idea into his work. He challenges viewers to consider other possibilities and to make alternatives happen. He invokes viewers to see the world differently and to adapt to wider perspectives beyond their own fears and anxieties.

Bertolt Brecht put it powerfully: Art is not a mirror held up to society, but a hammer with which to shape it. In the darkest of times, art is not an indulgence. It is a mark of our deepest humanity and is essential. It is a way of undermining constrained perspectives, restoring hope, forging a sense of resilience, and asserting our humanity.

 The darkness of the world may not be our fault, but to light up the world is our existential duty. To cure the ills of society is too much to ask for any art or artist. But when a body of work – because it comes from a place of truth and universality – can reflect the horrors of the moment we live in, then it is incumbent upon us to give it serious attention. We cannot afford to overlook an ‘oeuvre’ as timely as this.

 The exhibition runs from 9 to 30 March 2024 at the Art Cube Gallery, OPVI Centre, 2295 Chino Roces Avenue Extension, Makati City.

Inside the Outsider

Pete Jimenez I Benjie Lontoc I Jose Tence Ruiz I Pinggot Zulueta

November 2023
Kaida Contemporary
Quezon City

In a partially wired planet of allegedly borderless exchange, in a globe where access has accompanied Capital to all regions of the exploitable planet, in a world where former categories are being broken down to merge into new constituencies, this show purports to explore the inner reflections of the residue of these changes previously asserted : While capital insists that we are ever closer to all inclusive societies, these four artists might ruminate on the inner world of the outsider, on the panoply of implications that the word suggests, outside of the institutionally broadcast, outside of the platitudinal.

These four mature souls have been outside, or seen the outside of matters, and are in a position in this show, the expose their inner regard, their reckoning with their positions.

It might be of deep interest to see the broad table on which they will lay their heretofore private spread. 

INFINITUM 

Pinggot Zulueta 

7 July to 6 August 2022

West Gallery 

 INFINITUM, the artist Pinggot Zulueta’s latest art exhibition, is a continuation of his autobiographical journey into introspection. This exhibit is the fourth in a series - inclusive of ‘Melankolia’ (2020), Katharsis (2017) and Incepto (2016) – whereby the artist presents his inner upheavals as a sentient being. As the series matures, and with the passing of time, the artist has gained deeper insights through an ability to see the outside inwardly.

 The meaning of Infinitum (or Ad Infinitum) is ‘without end or limit’. The adage ‘art imitates life and life imitates art’ is an endless philosophical loop, and one that the artist’s works corroborate with. However, ‘infinitum’ may be a difficult concept to grasp as the world continues to grapple with a pandemic. Amidst the crisis, artistic expressions have evolved, including those of the artist whose works had been subdued by intense questions about human existence and survival. In solidarity with various form of anguish, his artworks are presented in exuberant fields of black and white, as if shades of darkness are spreading into infinity.

 NFINITUM is a series of ink drawings on paper, a medium that allows the artist to devote himself to his craft for countless hours. The artworks present a confluence of emotions, including despondent expressions about the grim realities of this segment in human history. “During the years of isolation, my resolve was to document how the pandemic was affecting me and others, including the not-so-subtle realisation that our mortality is real. I had been more conscious of the creeping dangers to everyone, including to my family and friends. Sino ang may bertud at hindi tinatablan ng covid? Maraming kaibigan ang biglang naglaho … sino ang susunod? Panalangin ang palaging sinasambit upang mapakalma ang sarili. I saw the world in ‘black and white’, which disposition had resonated in my artworks.” The solitude and isolation from the seemingly endless days of the pandemic had been challenging; however, the artist had prevailed in projecting his mind forward to resist fixation on the immediate moment. 

 INFINITUM is a collection of artworks depicting various states of intense and conflicting emotions. The artist used surreal symbolism to draw in viewers into an immersive visceral experience, whilst challenging their perceptions and perspectives. The artworks are expressions of the artist’s innermost thoughts and defy any categorisation. “My work is inherently subconscious. I get lost in the pure enjoyment of creating. Through the artworks, I have expressed and affirmed my sensibilities which otherwise would have eluded capture.”

 The artist believes that art has something to say about the human condition. Keeping our destructive instincts at bay is what we need to do if we wish to preserve the fabric of our society and the very essence of human survival. When we are in a state of mind, in which things are not resolved into conventional categories, we are more likely to see new possibilities. “I have always painted whenever I felt the need to understand the underlying forces around my existence. The recent pandemic has created a more intense awareness of our mortality, as we make deliberate choices as to what is important. In a way, there was this ‘collective introspection’ that happened, where human beings stopped to reflect on the little things that make a huge difference in our lives. It was a collective effort that unified the world into defeating the pandemic.” The artist invites the viewers to engage in a process of individual and collective introspection, and to allow various levels of contemplation to generate it. Together, our collective resilience and survival is limitless. 

 The exhibition runs from 7 July to 6 August at the West Gallery, Quezon City.

 

The Shadow That Looms Until The End of Light

By Jose Tence Ruiz

It would seem salutary to suggest that we are woke, professing cognizance of an entire half millenium of having been molded and shaped by fellow humans coming in from outside our indigenous spaces. The Big Topic of the year 2021, aside of course from a persistently fatal virus that also drifted in from without, is a remembrance of 1521, when this archipelago which we inhabited since pre-history was to be changed by visitors from halfway across the globe. By 1521, these islands were not unused to foreigners : The Arabs, Austro-polynesians, Siamese, Chinese, Indians, they all came and found settlement and social exchange; It’s just that this wave of visitors from the Empires of the Baroque Era had designs to own us as a territory; Us, as a subjected peoples in extension and sustenance of their own progress, of their own growth, fed on resources taken from us.

Is this not the way to launch a meditation on 1521?

A cursory chat with three filipino artist contemporaries yielded a quaint, even giggly observation: All three of us, who are not of Iberian physiognomy, all bear hispanicized surnames ; Mr Jose ‘Pinggot’ Zulueta is rather quite bumi/austropolynesian, Mr Jose ’Bogie’ Tence Ruiz is more Ottoman/Chinese and Mr Federico ‘Pete’ Jimenez will definitely pass for Sino-Japanese. Yet we all move forward into 2022 with this cross pollinated bricolage of a self : That which sociologist historian Vincente Rafael describes as a product of the overlapping trajectories of three empires : Spain, America and Japan. And we belong to the converse of Empire, and, perforce, count ourselves as bred from Colony.

And the mention of Colony corollarily conjures up discourses of subjugation, resistance, violent domination, exploitation, release, self-realization, parity, human justice, compassion and cruelty, mimicry, bondage, heroism and betrayal and an elongated list of subjects that extrude themselves whenever one segment of humanity overpowers the other. So we therefore come into this exhibit with this Galleon-load of baggage and dwell on the expressions that are thrown up in a review of the painful but also rivetting narrative of a self-proclaimed community, imagined as Benedict Anderson would call it, that has labored under the heel of one that has sought to reduce it to being merely a source of nutrition and sustenance, while draining this very sustenance from those who by fate were born or sited on these dominated territories.

Thus does this show, which mainly deals with redolence, traces, effects, using the spanish line In the shadow of Colony, “ala sombra de la Colonia” unfold with works that can as well be mutating variants of redolence : Pinggot Zulueta has marked out some very intense black and white ink drawings that propose a visceral lens, with equally raw tropes that work to start newer conversations about the last 500 years, conversations from below, to lay down a perspective, from those whose lives were ravaged and brutally gobbled up to feed larger regimes. He posits that for a decolonization to be effected, courage, heroism, even martyrdom has to be relocated at the fore. He is aware that relations of subjugation are eroded by releasing suppressed histories, histories long referred to by national historian Renato Constantino as histories from beneath, from the subjugated breaking the silence of rule by force driven conquest. Zulueta presents the bovine carcass in a good number of his drawings, as if to suggest the domestication of the conquered, like humans domesticate cows for the table, and at the same time suggest individuals who have risen above this domestication to assert a decolonization, a realisation dreamt of, harking to the better f-word, freedom.

Tence Ruiz had a father who looked primarily Chinese. His maternal grandfather, Victor Tence, born in eastern France into the poverty of uphill farming, came over as infantry with the American General Dewey’s occupying forces. Tence Ruiz speculates on the dilution, if not the drowning of culture with dominance. He re-creates familiar poses of what were once Filipino heroes in the continuum of self definition but layers on them a pathetic corruption and

re-assignment into the desires of empire: Proto-heroic Andres Bonifacio is relegated to a Superman look-alike in a massagic purgatory, Revolutionary General del Pilar transmutes into a Hollywood leading man on an equestrian monument of exploited agriculture and the sublime intellectual Mabini, looking unnervingly close to a Chinese martial arts idol, is grafted onto the prurient equivalent of his namesake, that which thrust prostitution onto the laps of returning strangers, now re-christened as sex tourists.The narrative of A. Mabini as red light haven for the ‘puti’, whites, is a cautionary tale of twisted hospitality and the resultant degradation of otherwise noble lives into the infamy of subjugation.

His largest work for ‘Colonia’ is a florid kariton-katedral, harking to both the Illusory Garden of Eden and the Islamic firdaus, that ramrods a foreign one sided contract of a heavenly reward onto the oppressed in exchange for all their worldly ownings and dignity, while climbing on a stage crafted from the debris of denuded forests of exploited timber and industrially profitable minerals.

Pete Jimenez leavens the opprobrium of his showmates with wittily reassembled avatars of cultural notions evolved in the engagement with conquest: the ‘Sardinas’, comical metonym of overpopulation, bestowed with an elevating, if Euro-Olive oil imbued but homegrown Spanish snobberry; the robot-like remnants of ruthless Japanese severity, both as rulers and as defeated targets of the Americans; the superficial pacification of a whole people under a transplanted Educational system, even the prospect of a future loss of sea resources to the newly aggressive and determinedly growing Beijing-run Empire of Command Capitalism. He touches on grave topics with droll humor and irony, and spans the near erased past as well as the fearful future, a fraught span of time where the inhabitants of our Archipelago are unyeildingly besieged by those who would covet our naturally endowed treasures, above and into the soil, beneath the seas, and now, burrowing deep, into our demarcated continental shelf. Jimenez’ wit with discards also mirrors the self serving upitty attitudes that the elite of these islands have grown like a keloid to assuage and justify their consistent betrayal of the majority in favor of being surrogates/collaborators for and with the invaders, offering their feasance for uninterrupted economic and social ascendancy. Or to explain why someone once wanted to rechristen us Islas de las Ladrones.

The entire schema of dominance, of the large consuming the small, is generally undesirable in a proportional humanized proposition of ideal existence, but it does exist and looms, grand and imposing. Colonization is not new to homo sapiens, who from the individual to the tribal to the national to the global has always had to deal with one segment eating up another, or feeding from it in an unequal relationship. In our Utopian aspirations, we yearn for a state of being free from capture, but those of us thrown into the crucible of realpolitik have come to recognize that eternity is a concept that none of us will ever live to reach, that immortality is a conceit, and that the Utopian project of being in unfettered liberty is constantly vulnerable to siege from those who entertain the illussion that their power is equal to and a signal of their magnanimity. Tyrants, or colonizers for that matter see themselves as gods bequeathing to the Promethean among the masses, and this cycle of dominance and repression will accompany Humanity for millenia to come, at whichever planet we as a race might touch down on .

This exhibit exists within this contentious universe of emancipation and captivity, and our three quaintly surnamed exhibitors struggle to articulate, to give imagery to these tides of conflict between individuals, states, continents, later even planets in a way germane and thus emotionally resonant and authentic to their memories and modes of comprehension. Colonia will always hover over humans, maybe as an irreversible complement of their ability to grow. Power is said to be beneficial until it outpaces its needs, and the freedoms of people, to ever be realized, will always have to contend with the sysiphean processes of recognition and resistance.