BENEDICTO CABRERA

Early Years

Cabrera was born in Malabon, Philippines. Throughout his childhood, BenCab was exposed to the world of art. He was influenced by his older brother, Salvador Cabrera, who was already an established artist. At the age of seven, BenCab began to paint on pavements and walls. During high school, BenCab continued pursuing his interest in visual arts and drew illustrations and portraits for his peers.

After becoming one of five finalists of the Castro scholarship, BenCab enrolled at the University of the Philippines’ College of Fine Arts in 1959. During his studies, BenCab explored different mediums of art, like printmaking and photography.

In 1963, he graduated from the University of the Philippines Diliman with a BA in Fine Arts. In the same year, BenCab won first prize for his oil painting of a talipapa (market) in the University of the Philippines’ Student Council Art Competition. Shortly after, he began working as an illustrator for the national magazine Liwayway.

Throughout the 1960s, BenCab began to focus on his career as a full-time artist. He began exhibiting work in shows across the Philippines, with his first exhibition of oil and acrylic paintings at the Indigo Gallery in Mabini in 1966.

Benedicto Cabrera Artworks

‘Sabel’ Series

In 1964, BenCab encountered a homeless Filipino woman named Sabel. He became interested in her disposition as a scavenger and viewed her as symbol of isolation and despair. BenCab began sketching and painting Sabel, depicting her as the central character in his figurative paintings.

His series of ‘Sabel’ paintings (1960s–ongoing) capture the movement and sway of the woman’s clothes, which were made from scraps of material found on the street. The material drapes and folds over Sabel like a fashionable cape. BenCab transforms Sabel’s scavenged clothing into a high art and introduces a surrealist quality to the work by capturing Sabel’s energetic dancing.

‘Larawan’ Series

In this series of work, BenCab uses colonial photography as his main source of inspiration. The work is a nod towards the artist’s nostalgia for his homeland. While living in Europe, BenCab found rare Filipino prints and photographs in antique markets and bookshops. He began to use sepia-toned imagery of colonial iconography as a reference to create a series of acrylic paintings.

BenCab’s ‘Larawan’ series (1970s–ongoing) draws parallels between the past and present. Each painting visualises a distant era of Filipino life subtly connected to the present through the artist’s use of colour and composition.

‘Larawan’ has been exhibited in various shows throughout Europe. When the work was shown in 1972 at The Luz Gallery in Manila, the critical success of the exhibition established him as an influential artist among his peers in the Philippines.

Awards and Accolades

BenCab has been the recipient of a number of awards throughout his career.

In 1992, BenCab received the CCP Award For The Arts in Visual Arts by the Cultural Center of the Philippines. In 2005, he was invited by the Singapore Tyler Print Institution to join their Visiting Arts Programme and participate in an artist residency.

In 2006, he was awarded the Order of National Artist for Visual Arts from the Philippine Government.

In 2009, BenCab established the BenCab Museum, a space intended for the display of BenCab’s artwork alongside his personal art collection and indigenous Filipino artworks.

Exhibitions

Benedicto Cabrero has exhibited in both solo and group exhibitions. Solo exhibitions include BenCab: 50 Creative Years, Lopez Museum, Manila (2015).

Selected group exhibitions include Not Visual Noise, Ateneo Art Gallery, Quezon City (2019); Images of Nation: National Artists in the BPI Art Collection, Ayala Museum, Makati (2019); Disparate Bodies, Yavuz Gallery, Singapore (2018); The Triumph of Philippine Art, USC Fisher Museum of Art, University of Southern California, Los Angeles (2014); Thrice Upon A Time: A Century of Story in the Art of the Philippines, Singapore Art Museum (2009); Ben Cabrera, Ahmad Zakii Anwar, Putu Sutawijaya: Humanities, Andrewshire Gallery, Los Angeles (2009); Portraits: First Impressions, Asian Collection, Tokyo (2009).

Website and Instagram

BenCab’s website can be found here.

Articles

Articles on BenCab have been published in various publications, including Tatler.

Ocula | 2022