Ateneo Art Gallery presents the winning Artists and Writers of the Ateneo Art Awards 2025

The Ateneo Art Gallery (AAG) announced the winning Artists and Writers of the Ateneo Art Awards 2025 (AAA) during the awarding ceremony held last 5 October 2025 at the Ateneo Art Gallery. The program was also highlighted by the presentation of trophies to this year’s Shortlisted Artists and Writers, and the announcement of residency grant selections and the Embassy of Italy Purchase Prize recipient. Guests can visit the Ateneo Art Awards 2025 exhibition to see all the shortlisted exhibitions and read the shortlisted essays at the 3F galleries of the Ateneo Art Gallery,  on view until 7 December 2025.

Co-presented with the Kalaw-Ledesma Foundation, Inc., a total of three winners were selected for the Purita Kalaw-Ledesma Prizes in Art Criticism (PKL). Winning writers will be contributing to Publication Partners’ respective platforms. Writer’s residency grant recipients were also chosen from among the three winners by partners Orange Project Naranja Residency (Bacolod, Negros Occidental), The White House (San Antonio, Zambales) and new Writer’s Residency Partner Indeks (Bandung, Indonesia) for month-long residencies.

The two winners from the English Category are Pie Tiausas with their essay “The internet is a space for the lonely” for the PKL Prize for The Philippine Star, and Bea Belen-Ferrer for the PKL Prize for ArtAsiaPacific Magazine with her essay “In Between Flight and Fallout: What Would Postwar Modernists Do?.” Belen-Ferrer was also selected for The Naranja Residency Grant under Orange Project, and the Indeks Residency Grant. For the Filipino category, Emersan Baldemor was awarded the PKL Prize for Katipunan Journal for his essay “Hindi Lahat ng Umaangat ay Naaalala: Si Tandang Ano at ang Politikang Estetiko ng Paglimot.” He is also the recipient of The White House Residency Grant.

Following a biennial schedule, the Fernando Zóbel Prizes for Visual Art (FZA) shortlists twelve artists, selected from a total of 159 qualified nominated exhibitions held between 2 May 2023 to 1 May 2025. Out of the Shortlist, the four (4) winners of the AAA Fernando Zóbel Prizes for Visual Art, in no particular order, are:

• Jel Suarez - As I Lift One Stone (Blanc Gallery, 9–30 November 2024)
• Silke Lapina - Bakit Pa (Edoweird, 1–28 March 2025)
• Hannah Reyes Morales - Home Holds Still (Tarzeer Pictures, 16 November 2024-–30 January 2025)
• Uri de Ger - Beauty Is In The Eye Of The Colonizer (KalawakanSpacetime, 27 October–30 November 2024)

Among the four winners, Visual Art Residency Partners select residency grant recipients who will be given the opportunity to engage with local and foreign communities, and further develop their artistic practice. The AAG also welcomes two new foreign visual art residency Partners, Koganecho Area Management Center (Yokohama, Japan) and Monsoon Southeast Asia Collection & LASALLE College of the Arts (Singapore).

Uri de Ger is the selected recipient of the No Space Residency Grant (Baguio, Benguet), and Hannah Reyes Morales for the ABungalow Residency Grant (Talisay, Negros Occidental). Silke Lapina was chosen for two residencies, the Project Space Pilipinas Residency Grant (Lucban, Quezon) and the La Trobe Art Institute, La Trobe University Residency Grant (Bendigo, Australia). Jel Suarez was selected for residency grants from CASA San Miguel (San Antonio, Zambales), Koganecho Area Management Center (Yokohama, Japan), The Creative Campus, Liverpool Hope University (Liverpool, United Kingdom), Monsoon Southeast Asia Collection & LASALLE College of the Arts (Singapore), and OCAD University (Ontario, Canada).

Hannah Reyes Morales is also the selected Shortlisted Artist for the Embassy of Italy Purchase Prize presented by H.E. Ambassador Davide Giglio. For the People’s Choice Poll, the exhibitions with the most running votes are Issay Rodriguez’s gathering, collecting, ongoingness, Uri de Ger’s Beauty Is In the Eye Of The Colonizer, and Silke Lapina’s Bakit Pa. Visitors may still vote for their favorite exhibition through the People’s Choice poll at https://go.ateneo.net/AAA2025PeoplesChoice, with the most voted exhibition to be announced after the exhibition closes.

The exhibition is on view at the 3F Ateneo Art Gallery (Fredesvina Almeda Consunji Gallery, Ambeth R Ocampo Gallery, Elizabeth Gokongwei Gallery, and Alicia P Lorenzo Gallery), Soledad V Pangilinan Arts Wing, Areté, Ateneo de Manila University, until 7 December 2025. 

The Ateneo Art Awards 2025 is co-presented by Ateneo Art Gallery, Kalaw-Ledesma Foundation Inc., and The Philippine Star; in partnership with ArtAsiaPacific, Katipunan Journal, and the Embassy of Italy in the Philippines; venue partner Shangri-La Plaza; residency partners ABungalow (Talisay, Negros Occidental), CASA San Miguel (San Antonio, Zambales), Indeks (Bandung, Indonesia), Koganecho Area Management Center (Yokohama, Japan), La Trobe University - La Trobe Art Institute (Bendigo, Australia), Liverpool Hope University (Liverpool, United Kingdom), Monsoon Southeast Asia Collection & LASALLE College of the Arts (Singapore), No Space (Baguio, Benguet), OCAD University (Ontario, Canada), Orange Project Naranja Residency (Bacolod, Negros Occidental), Project Space Pilipinas (Lucban, Quezon Province) and The White House (San Antonio, Zambales).