Mauro Malang Santos: Drawings

Mauro Malang Santos: Drawings brings together a selection of works on paper from the artist’s career, spanning six decades. The show is on view at the 2F Ateneo Art Gallery (Wilson L Sy Prints and Drawings Gallery) from 28 September 2025, Sunday, until 28 February 2026. 

Dated between the 1960s, when he first ventured out into the world of art, and close to the time of his passing in 2017, these drawings are a collection of sketches and studies, and finished work, providing a different perspective on Malang, who received most of his acclaim for his renderings of the Filipino experience leaned into the celebration and joyousness of everyday life. The drawings are shown alongside paintings rendered in oil, watercolour, and gouache, and reveal his way of thinking through his life and work, an expression of his inner life.

Born in Manila in 1928, Malang, through his oeuvre, reflects the chaos and colour of the city, focusing on subjects like women vendors (often depicted in the middle of gossip) and families, the labyrinthine barung-barongs, landscapes and cityscapes, and religious iconography found all around the capital. 

An extension of Malang’s life and practice, drawings were, he used to say, more valuable as they held more soul. There is an intimacy that exists between one’s spirit and the immediacy of drawing, and for him, putting pen to paper was a natural reflex and not something he had to think about doing. These works on paper reveal the foundations of the work he’s most known for: bursts of colour and careful composition.

In 2006, Malang presented early symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease at 78. This condition progressed in the next eleven years of his life and was later coupled with Parkinson’s disease, which decreased his ability and motivation to stick to his routine. Some of the drawings collected here were created during this time, providing a rare glimpse into the private world of Malang, and presenting a journal of sorts, drawing a line from the beginning to the end of his career.

Mauro Malang Santos: Drawings is on view at the Wilson L Sy Prints and Drawings Gallery, 2F Ateneo Art Gallery, Soledad V Pangilinan Arts Wing, Areté, Ateneo de Manila University from 28 September 2025–28 February 2026. The Ateneo Art Gallery is open Mondays to Saturdays from 9:00am–5:00pm, and on every first and third Sunday of the month from 9:00am–4:00pm. Closed on regular and University holidays. For inquiries, email aag@ateneo.edu or call (2) 8426 6488.