Wawi Navarroza
Bio
Wawi Navarroza is a Filipino contemporary artist known for her works in photography, actively exhibiting in galleries and museums in the Philippines and internationally. Her images explore Self and Surrounding as seen in her works in contemporary landscape, constructed tableaus, and self-portraits. Informed by tropicality within the dynamics of post-colonial dialogue, globalization, and the artist as transnational, her works transmute personal experience to the symbolic while probing materials and studio practice; all perhaps to mirror a path to understanding a deeper sense of place & identity.
She has exhibited widely in the Philippines and internationally, including the National Museum of the Philippines, Metropolitan Museum of Manila, Singapore Art Museum 8Q, Hangaram Museum (Korea), National Museum of Fine Arts (Taiwan), Yogyakarta National Museum (Indonesia), Fries Museum of Contemporary Art & Museum Belvedere (Netherlands), Danubiana Museum (Slovakia), and in galleries in Australia, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Laos, Cambodia, London, Spain, Italy, and Russia; with continued participation in international photography festivals and art fairs such as Art Basel HK.
Navarroza has received a number of awards such as the Asian Cultural Council Fellowship Grant New York, Lucas Artists Fellowship Award for Visual Arts San Francisco, Cultural Center of the Philippines’ Thirteen Artists Awards, Ateneo Art Awards, Lumi Photographic Art Awards Helsinki, and a finalist for Singapore Museum Signature Art Prize, WMA Commission Hong Kong and Sovereign Asian Art Prize. Her works are in the collection of Bangko Central ng Pilipinas (Central Bank of the Philippines), Metropolitan Museum of the Philippines, Menarco Tower/The Vertical Museum at Bonifacio Global City, and Stora Enso Photography Museum in Oulu, Finland.
Her art has been surveyed in books such as “Photography Today” (Phaidon) “Contemporary Photography in Asia” (Prestel) and “Photography in South East Asia” by Zuang Wubin (NUS Press). Navarroza has been a strong proponent of the printed format as an extension of artistic work and with this, has published two books “DOMINION” and “Hunt & Gather, Terraria”, launched respectively at Offprint Paris and PS1MoMA. In 2015, she founded Thousandfold, a contemporary photography platform, and the first photobook library in Manila, with Thousandfold Small Press as its publishing arm. As an educator, she gives periodic workshops and is a recognized speaker at photography talks, reviews, and conferences in the Philippines and abroad.
Navarroza is a graduate of Communications Arts at De La Salle University, Manila. Shortly after, she received continuing education at the International Center of Photography in New York City with a Fellowship Grant from the Asian Cultural Council. For a few years, she was based in Spain where she finished her Masters in Contemporary Photography (Master Europeo de Fotografía de Autor) awarded by Instituto Europeo di Design in Madrid.
She currently lives and works in İstanbul, Turkey.
Wawi Navarroza is represented by Silverlens and Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery.
For inquiries: studio@wawinavarroza.com
Wawi Navarroza is a Filipino contemporary artist known for her works in photography, actively exhibiting in galleries and museums in the Philippines and internationally. Her images explore Self and Surrounding as seen in her works in contemporary landscape, constructed tableaus, and self-portraits. Informed by tropicality within the dynamics of post-colonial dialogue, globalization, and the artist as transnational, her works transmute personal experience to the symbolic while probing materials and studio practice; all perhaps to mirror a path to understanding a deeper sense of place & identity.
She has exhibited widely in the Philippines and internationally, including the National Museum of the Philippines, Metropolitan Museum of Manila, Singapore Art Museum 8Q, Hangaram Museum (Korea), National Museum of Fine Arts (Taiwan), Yogyakarta National Museum (Indonesia), Fries Museum of Contemporary Art & Museum Belvedere (Netherlands), Danubiana Museum (Slovakia), and in galleries in Australia, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Laos, Cambodia, London, Spain, Italy, and Russia; with continued participation in international photography festivals and art fairs such as Art Basel HK.
Navarroza has received a number of awards such as the Asian Cultural Council Fellowship Grant New York, Lucas Artists Fellowship Award for Visual Arts San Francisco, Cultural Center of the Philippines’ Thirteen Artists Awards, Ateneo Art Awards, Lumi Photographic Art Awards Helsinki, and a finalist for Singapore Museum Signature Art Prize, WMA Commission Hong Kong and Sovereign Asian Art Prize. Her works are in the collection of Bangko Central ng Pilipinas (Central Bank of the Philippines), Metropolitan Museum of the Philippines, Menarco Tower/The Vertical Museum at Bonifacio Global City, and Stora Enso Photography Museum in Oulu, Finland.
Her art has been surveyed in books such as “Photography Today” (Phaidon) “Contemporary Photography in Asia” (Prestel) and “Photography in South East Asia” by Zuang Wubin (NUS Press). Navarroza has been a strong proponent of the printed format as an extension of artistic work and with this, has published two books “DOMINION” and “Hunt & Gather, Terraria”, launched respectively at Offprint Paris and PS1MoMA. In 2015, she founded Thousandfold, a contemporary photography platform, and the first photobook library in Manila, with Thousandfold Small Press as its publishing arm. As an educator, she gives periodic workshops and is a recognized speaker at photography talks, reviews, and conferences in the Philippines and abroad.
Navarroza is a graduate of Communications Arts at De La Salle University, Manila. Shortly after, she received continuing education at the International Center of Photography in New York City with a Fellowship Grant from the Asian Cultural Council. For a few years, she was based in Spain where she finished her Masters in Contemporary Photography (Master Europeo de Fotografía de Autor) awarded by Instituto Europeo di Design in Madrid.
She currently lives and works in İstanbul, Turkey.
Wawi Navarroza is represented by Silverlens and Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery.
For inquiries: studio@wawinavarroza.com
Selected Works
Selected Works
Selected Exhibitions
Selected Press
- How This Artist’s Perception Of The Female Body And National Identity Shaped Her Approaches To Art
- Conversation with Wawi Navarroza
- Wawi Navarroza eludes definition in her latest solo 'As Wild As We Come'
- Wawi Navarroza uses her body as her artistic medium
- “The Artist Is Now A Mother,” Wawi Navarroza On The Vulnerability And Joys Of Motherhood In The Artworld
- Wawi Navarroza and the unbearable strength of the female artist
- Wawi Navarroza on becoming a mother and artist: ‘As women, we can always come back to our power’
- Looking Out Is Looking In and Returning to Self for Artist Wawi Navarroza
- S.E.A. Focus: 4 Unmissable Booths
- Artists Talk: Wawi Navarroza in conversation with Jed Gregorio
- Arts & Culture: The Tropical Gothic & A Decade of Self-Portraiture, Wawi Navarroza on Muse and Memoir
- Wawi Navarroza's New Exhibit Proves the Importance of Self-Reflection
- A Filipino artist on the duty of photography