Aquilizan, Maria Isabel

Born in Manila in 1965, Maria Isabel Gaudinez built her early intellectual foundations in the performing arts. She completed her Bachelor of Communication Arts at Assumption College in Makati City in 1986, developing a lifelong dedication to group dynamics, stage management, and performance. Her pivot into fine art installations was sparked by her marriage and lifelong creative alliance with Alfredo Juan Aquilizan. Together, they turned their everyday domestic life—including the immense, shared responsibility of raising five children—into the primary inspiration and material foundation for their studio practice.

A major milestone arrived in 2006 when the Aquilizans made the life-altering choice to emigrate from the Philippines to Brisbane, Australia. The intense emotional weight of packing up their entire family home into a series of shipping crates directly inspired their globally celebrated series, Project Another Country. This long-running project propelled the duo onto the absolute peak of the international biennale circuit, resulting in high-profile commissions from institutions like Tate Liverpool, the Venice Biennale, and the Asia Pacific Triennial.

Dividing their time between their home in Brisbane and an active forge studio in Baanan, Magdalena, Laguna, the Aquilizans remain a highly influential force in contemporary sculpture. Their work has enjoyed an extraordinary global renaissance, highlighted by a comprehensive, blockbuster survey at Museum MACAN in Jakarta, and a major 2025 homecoming exhibition at the Ateneo Art Gallery. This homecoming celebrated their return to the Philippine archipelago after nearly two decades of global expatriation.

Education & Interdisciplinary Pedigree
1986: Bachelor of Communication Arts (Specialization in Theater and Performing Arts) – Assumption College, Makati City, Metro Manila, Philippines.

Major Institutional Settings & Research Positions
Active Tenure: Master Artist and Co-Director – The Aquilizan Studio (Brisbane, Australia / Laguna, Philippines).

2016: Elite Studio Research Fellows – STPI Creative Workshop and Gallery, Singapore (Pioneering master print collagraphies using compressed cardboard matrices).
Exhibition & Collection History
Selected Individual Presentations & Museum Retrospectives
2024–2025: Project Belonging: From There to Here (The Familiar in the Foreign) – Ateneo Art Gallery, Areté, Quezon City, Metro Manila (A major two-part historical homecoming survey curated by Kristine Guzmán, marking their symbolic return after nearly two decades in Australia).

2023: Somewhere, Elsewhere, Nowhere – Museum MACAN (Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Nusantara), Jakarta, Indonesia (A blockbuster, multi-decade retrospective gathering their iconic large-scale installations).

2022: That Space in Between – Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León (MUSAC), León, Spain.

2021: See Through – Institute of Modern Art (IMA), Brisbane, Australia.

2017: Of Fragments and Impressions – STPI Creative Workshop and Gallery, Singapore.

Selected Bienniales & Global Group Circuits
2026: Alfredo & Isabel Aquilizan, Manuel Ocampo, Dominic Mangila – The Columns Gallery, Gillman Barracks, Singapore (A major spring presentation showcasing her Arrivals and Departures series).

2026: Art Basel Hong Kong 2026 – Featured Master Sculptor under Ames Yavuz Gallery, presenting her raw steel spatial models Platforms Version 3.

2025: Art Fair Philippines 2025 – Curated Solo Booth Devices, presenting a specialized showcase of her Left-Wing Project forged metal installations.

2024: DWELL/IN/PLACE – Japanisches Palais, Dresden State Art Collections, Dresden, Germany.

2019: Setouchi Triennale 2019 – Kagawa Prefecture, Japan (Staging her marine environment Restoration of the Sea).

2013: 11th Sharjah Biennial – Sharjah, United Arab Emirates.

2010: Liverpool Biennial 2010 – Tate Liverpool, United Kingdom.

2008: Inaugural Singapore Biennale – National Museum of Singapore, Singapore.

2006: 15th Biennale of Sydney – Sydney, Australia.

2003: 50th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia – Padiglione Italo-Latino-Americano, Venice, Italy.

Permanent Institutional Public Collections
Aquilizan’s massive installations, collaborative cardboard modules, and print editions are permanently preserved within premier global museum assets:

The National Gallery of Australia (Canberra, Australia)

The Queensland Art Gallery & Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA) (Brisbane, Australia)

The Fukuoka Asian Art Museum (Fukuoka, Japan)

The Tate Modern Archives (London, United Kingdom)

The Museum MACAN Collection (Jakarta, Indonesia)

The MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum (Chiang Mai, Thailand)

The Cultural Center of the Philippines & National Museum of Fine Arts (Manila)