Ernest Concepcion is a Filipino contemporary artist and painter based in Manila, Philippines. Many of his works, including large-scale paintings, are built upon intricate drawings, doodles, and caricatures. Rich in crowded detail and depicted activity, his paintings are brimming with themes and narratives that suggest battles, ruins, storms, deluge, invasions, and catastrophes. This resonates with a contemporary cultural landscape saturated with media and socio-political discord. This imagery is also fed by ideas of what is epic, sinister, heroic, gigantic, and otherworldly in the popular culture he consumes — comic books, toys, games, science fiction, and music.
Ernest Concepcion spent several years abroad, where he participated in a number of art residences including The Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC) Workspace Program, the Bronx Museum of Art Artists-in-the-Marketplace (AIM) Program, the Artists Alliance Inc. Rotating Studio Program, the Lower East Side Printshop Keyholder Residency, the LMCC Swing Space Program at Governors Island and an artist residency in Beijing, China via NY Arts Magazine. In the Philippines, he became a Light & Space Contemporary resident artist in 2014.
In 2011, Concepcion became a New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) finalist in the drawing Category and a nominee for the Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptors Grant. Since coming back to the Philippines, he has had solo exhibitions in many of its prominent galleries and institutions, including West Gallery, Art Informal, Secret Fresh, 1335 Mabini, and Blanc Gallery, Lopez Memorial Museum, and the Vargas Museum. In 2013, he participated at the El Museo del Barrio’s La Bienal in New York and held a solo exhibition in Minneapolis. In 2015, he was given the prestigious 13 Artists Award by the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP).
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