Qube Gallery is pleased to announce its return to Art Fair Philippines 2026, continuing its participation in the country’s leading modern and contemporary art fair. Opening from February 6 to 8, 2026, at Circuit Makati, Makati City, the gallery’s participation this year reflects its sustained commitment to the fair and to the artists it has supported over time.
Building on its previous appearances at Art Fair Philippines, Qube Gallery continues its engagement with themes of urban landscapes and materiality, expanding this direction toward the relationship between the infinite, the physical, and the inner self. The gallery introduces Interwoven Space, bringing together artists the gallery has worked with over the years: Janine Barrera, Francis Dravigny, Sio Montera, and Jewelle Yeung. The presentation also introduces Christopher George Ichikawa to its roster.
In Interwoven Space, Chinese-Filipino artist Yeung and Cebuano artist Montera instigate the infinite and the unknown through two distinct registers of abstraction: Yeung’s luminous and energetic paintings, and Montera’s materially charged expressions.
Honing in on the physical world, San Francisco-based Cebuano artist Barrera and French textile artist Dravigny anchor the section in land—earth, heritage, and the essence of place. Barrera’s vibrant landscapes convey the felt quality of perception, while Dravigny’s tapestries weave Philippine heritage with reclaimed materials. Through a collaboration with American painter and silkscreen artist Charles Lahti, Dravigny further extends textile practice into an intergenerational, cross-cultural dialogue.
Returning to the inner world, Japanese-British mixed-media artist Ichikawa employs fantastical sculptures to explore radical love, self-acceptance, and queer identity, forming the exhibition’s intimate core. Interwoven Space brings together a mix of local and international artists, whose connections ultimately were drawn and formed in Qube Gallery’s origins in Cebu—between the artists, the city, and its space—gathering together different perspectives around shared lived experiences, shaped by local grounding and outward influences.
Reflecting this exchange, Qube Gallery has long welcomed international artists into Cebu, while the artists it works with remain actively engaged and recognized in international contexts, allowing conversations formed locally to resonate globally.
Artist Biographies
Janine Barrera Castillo began her formal art education at the University of the Philippines, graduating with a Bachelor’s Degree in Fine Arts, with a Major in Painting. While at university, she garnered several awards for various art competitions, most notably winning First Place three times over in the prestigious Jose Joya Awards.
Immediately after graduation, her career began with two solo art shows as well as constant participation in numerous group shows. But it was through a scholarship competition, a Study for the United States Full Scholarship Competition offered by the Starr Foundation of New York that landed her an opportunity to further her studies in the United States. She then pursued her Masters in Fine Arts Degree at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco.
Janine B. Castillo has since been an exhibiting artist with several solo and group shows in the San Francisco Bay Area, as well as in the Philippines. She can be found most days working in her Artist Studio located in the North Bay.
Jewelle Yeung Mugglestone (b. 1983) is a Chinese-Filipino artist whose early life unfolded between the UK, Hong Kong, and the Philippines — a cross-cultural foundation that continues to inform her visual language. She trained in Fashion at the University of the Arts London before completing a Master’s in Fine Art at City & Guilds of London Art School. Her early creative path unfolded in London’s fashion world, including work with Hussein Chalayan and Puma International. A move back to Asia marked a turning point, opening her practice into art direction, graphic design, and production design, before painting emerged as her central form of expression.
Now based in Cebu, her work explores the subtle dimensions beneath and beyond the visible world — energetic fields, natural intelligence, and unseen forces shaping life, growth, and transformation. Working primarily in oil, she builds layered, atmospheric compositions that balance deep tonal spaces with luminous movement and gesture.
Rather than depicting nature in literal terms, Yeung paints the felt presence of existence itself — the interplay of matter, energy, and consciousness across seen and unseen realms. Her works invite viewers into liminal spaces where perception shifts, the physical gives way to the subtle, and human experience meets a wider field of intelligence, reflecting on our place in the universe and how we relate to realities beyond what can be immediately seen.
Francis Dravigny (b. 1955) is a textile artist whose work explores the transformative potential of natural fibers, creating pieces that redefine textile as fine art. Inspired by both his home in Lyon, his art history and jewelry design training in Paris, and his experiences in the Philippines, Dravigny draws upon the country’s rich cultural heritage and landscapes, working with Philippine fibers to infuse his creations with local narratives. His work invites viewers to see textiles as a medium for deep cultural expression, with each piece resonating as both personal and universal.
Dravigny’s approach to textile is both innovative and reverent, honoring traditional Filipino materials while expanding their possibilities within contemporary art. His creations often feature abacá, romblon, raffia, and buntal—fibers that carry the
essence of Filipino identity—woven together with a broader vision that elevates these materials into lasting symbols of culture, memory, and sustainability. For Dravigny, textile art exists beyond craft, embodying themes of heritage, nature, and transformation.
In 2007, Dravigny founded Interlace Studio in Cebu, where he collaborates with local artisans and emerging talents, fostering an environment where traditional skills and sustainable practices merge with modern artistic expression. Through Interlace,
Dravigny empowers artisans to see their work as part of a larger cultural legacy, bridging the divide between artisan and artist in ways that are expansive and enduring.
Dravigny’s work has been featured in both local and international exhibitions, positioning him as a prominent voice in contemporary textile art. His pieces are celebrated for their ability to blur the line between art and cultural artifacts.
Christopher Georgie Ichikawa (b. 1982, Tokyo) is a British-Japanese multidisciplinary artist and creative director whose world-building practice encompasses fashion, design, and pop-inflected imagery. With a career in visual culture for global brands, Ichikawa extends the same sensibilities into a tender, radical art universe aligned with his advocacy for LGBTQ+ visibility and equal rights.
The Georgie Land, as the artist calls it, presents a realm governed by his persona Queen Georgie and an army of magical creatures that advocate acceptance and openness. The artist imagines this world as a resting spot: where softness becomes strength, humor can be healing, and identity is expansive.
In contemplating his moments between Cebu, London, and Japan, Ichikawa creates art as remembrance, embracing both organic and synthetic materials around him. The unicorn figurines he fondly names his “army of love” take their base form in resin, then become singular through natural pigments he creates himself.
Pink pulled from avocado skins. Indigo as the artist’s symbol for love. Yellow coaxed from botanicals kept from places, or gathered during milestones — letting place quite literally enter the work, so that each unicorn carries its own story and rarity.
Openness, for the artist-designer, is a method. That freedom shows in the mediums he works with: neon light, tapestry, pottery, printing, poetry, and even song, to form soulful parts of Ichikawa’s world of love. With art-making, conviction, and an infectious sense of optimism, Ichikawa takes the cliché out of love and uses it as his sole creative force, birthing a world where love rules, so that love truly does in this one.
Dennis “Sio” Montera (b. 1972, Cebu) is a Filipino abstract visual artist with over three decades of practice exploring materiality, perception, and the emotional weight of form. Working across painting, mixed media, installation, and experimental processes, his work is recognized for its layered surfaces, tactile depth, and immersive chromatic fields that blur the line between image and experience. His abstractions draw from modernist traditions and Southeast Asian sensibilities while resisting easy classification, operating at the edge of control and rupture through dense accumulations of pigment, sedimented marks, and luminous fragments that evoke memory and spiritual searching.
Montera’s artistic career includes more than thirty solo exhibitions and numerous group shows in major galleries, museums, and international venues, establishing him as one of the leading abstract artists in the Visayas and a significant voice in
contemporary Philippine art. He holds a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of the Philippines Diliman and a PhD in Creative Industries Design from National Cheng Kung University in Taiwan. This rare combination of advanced studio training and design-research scholarship allows him to move fluidly between intuition and theory, pushing materials to their limits while interrogating how meaning emerges through visual form.
Beyond his studio practice, Montera is a respected educator and cultural leader whose engagement with students, institutions, and cultural policy is driven by the conviction that serious artistic labor is essential to society’s vitality. His work continues to expand the possibilities of abstraction in the Philippine context while influencing generations of artists who see in his practice a model of integrity, discipline, and creative courage. The recognition his abstractions have earned is built not on trends or spectacle, but on a long, steady commitment to making meaningful, uncompromising art.
About Qube Gallery
Since its establishment in 2013, Qube Gallery has been dedicated to elevating contemporary artistic practices whose contributions continue to inspire, challenge, and enrich cultural discourse. Its mission is to cultivate new audiences while fostering existing ones and expanding public accessibility. Located in Cebu City, Qube Gallery aims to bridge the gap between traditional and contemporary practices in the region through its exhibitions and other programs. Over the years, the platform has been instrumental in introducing emerging and established practices through its participation in institutional presentations, art fairs, and other exchanges.
Qube Gallery is located at Crossroads, Gov. M. Cuenco Ave, Banilad, Cebu City, Philippines.
