Aquilizan, Maria Isabel and Aquilizan, Alfredo Juan

Alfredo Juan Aquilizan and Maria Isabel Gaudinez-Aquilizan began integrating their personal lives and creative practices in Manila during the late 20th century. Alfredo formalized his foundations in painting and fine arts, while Isabel sharpened her visual eye within the performing arts, completing a degree in Communication Arts with a focus on theater directing and group dynamics. Recognizing that their everyday realities as parents could serve as a rich foundation for art, they began collaborating on intimate, domestic installations that tracked the simple passages, habits, and material footprints of their growing family.

A monumental, life-altering turning point arrived in 2006 when the couple made the 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 catalyzed 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, the Asia Pacific Triennial, and Museum MACAN.

Following eighteen years of successful expatriation in Australia, the Aquilizans completed a highly publicized, historic repatriation back to their homeland, setting up a primary laboratory and forge studio in Baanan, Magdalena, Laguna. This return to the archipelago sparked a major evolution in their work, resulting in specialized collaborations with local traditional blacksmiths and a deep dive into regional agrarian histories. Dividing their current modern practice between major international gallery showcases and local community-engaged workshops, the Aquilizans remain some of the most influential and widely celebrated figures in global contemporary sculpture.

Exhibition History
Selected Individual Presentations & Traveling Surveys
2025: Alfredo & Isabel Aquilizan: Ellipsis – Ames Yavuz London, United Kingdom (A specialized showcase displaying their intricate See/Through series executed on delicate, callado-embroidered piña cloth).

2024–2025: Project Belonging: From There to Here (The Familiar in the Foreign) – Ateneo Art Gallery, Areté, Quezon City, Metro Manila, Philippines (Their monumental, two-part historical homecoming survey curated by Kristine Guzmán, marking their official 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, comprehensive multi-decade retrospective gathering their most famous large-scale installations).

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

2021: Articles of Faith – Museo Madre (Donnaregina Contemporary Art Museum), Naples, Italy.

Selected Global Biennales & Contemporary Showcases
2026: Alfredo & Isabel Aquilizan, Manuel Ocampo, Dominic Mangila – The Columns Gallery, Gillman Barracks, Singapore (A premier spring presentation tracking the themes of displacement, memory, and symbolic charge).

2026: Art Basel Hong Kong 2026 – Featured Master Sculptors under Ames Yavuz Gallery, presenting their architectural steel structures Platforms, Version 3.

2025: Thinking together: Exchanges with the natural world – Bundanon Art Museum, Illaroo, New South Wales, Australia (Staging their major new accumulative sculpture Reflections / Habitations).

2025: Art Fair Philippines 2025 – Curated Solo Booth Devices under Ames Yavuz Gallery, presenting a specialized showcase of their Left-Wing Project forged installations.

2019: Setouchi Triennale 2019 – Kagawa Prefecture, Japan (Staging their marine installation 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
The duo's massive installations, collaborative cardboard modules, and print editions are permanently preserved within premier global museum assets:

The Tate Modern Archives (London, United Kingdom)

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 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)