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

Inmortal
2007
769
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archival digital C-prints
24.02h x 20w in • 61h x 50.80w cm
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Edition of 10 + 2 AP
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For You, After Nietzsche
2011
771
1
archival pigment ink print
45h x 30w in • 114.30h x 76.20w cm
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Editions of 7 + 1 A/P
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Self Portrait with Bricks (Autorretratro con ladrillos)
2012
774
1
archival pigment print on Hahnemühle, cold-mounted on acid-free aluminum, with artistʼs exhibition frame i.e. wood frame custom-tinted to WN skin tone
41.34h x 27.56w in • 105h x 70w cm
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Edition of 5
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TERRARIUM nºXVI
2013
775
1
archival pigment ink on Hahnemüehle photo rag fine art paper
30h x 20w in • 76.20h x 50.80w cm
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Editions of 5 + 2AP, signed verso
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TIERRA SALVAJE nºV
2014
776
1
photographs and ephemeral earth drawings (soil, sand, lava, chalk, charcoal, carbonates), archival pigment ink print on Hahnemühle museum paper
20h x 15.98w in • 50.80h x 40.60w cm
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Edition of 8 + 2 AP
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"I Want To Live A Thousand More Years” (Self-Portrait After Dengue, with tropical plants and fake flowers)
2016
777
1
archival pigment print on Hahnemühle, cold-mounted on acid-free aluminum, with artistʼs exhibition frame i.e. double wood frame custom-tinted to WN skin
50h x 40w in • 127h x 101.60w cm
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Edition of 5 + 2 AP
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Untitled, after I Gak Murniasih “Dia Menggodaku / He Teased Me
2016
772
1
archival pigment print
20h x 30w in • 50.80h x 76.20w cm
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Edition of 5 + 2 AP
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Tabula Rasa
2017
773
1
archival pigment ink print on Hahnemühle fine art paper, mounted on acrylic support, framed
72h x 48w in • 182.88h x 121.92w cm
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Edition of 5
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May in Manila/Hot Summer (After Balthus, Self-Portrait)
2019
770
1
archival pigment print on Hahnemühle, cold-mounted on acid-free aluminum, with artistʼs exhibition frame i.e. wrapped fabric on double wood frame custom-tinted to WN skin tone
53.30h x 40w in • 135.38h x 101.60w cm
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Edition of 5
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Selected Exhibitions

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