Benjie Cabangis
Painter
Benjamin Isla Cabangis ( Benjie Cabangis ) obtained his fine arts degree, major in painting, from the University of the Philippines (UP) in 1978. He was visual arts instructor at the Philippine High School for the Arts (PHSA) at the National Arts Center in Mt. Makiling from1978-1980, and served as resource person and lecturer for the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP), Artists’ Workshop, 1983-1985, and the SEAMEO Project for Archaeology and Fine Arts, 1985. He was a member of the Technical Committee for Fine Arts and Interior Design for the Commission on Higher Education( CHED) from 2010 -2013. He was chairperson of the Department of Studio Arts for three consecutive terms from 1978-1998 at the UP College of Fine Arts where he is now a full professor of painting. He was former curator of the UP Fine Arts Gallery and has been organizing several exhibitions in galleries in Metro Manila.
Cabangis is one of the country’s respected abstractionists with thirty solo exhibitions to date and numerous local and international group exhibitions.
He was part of the Philippine representative in Young Art in Asia Now, Hong Kong Arts Center,1980 ; the ASEAN Painting and Photography Exhibition, Indonesia, 1980; Philippine Abstract Art, Alffield Gallery, Hong Kong, 1985; and the ASEAN Travelling Exhibit of Paintings in ASEAN countries, 1988-1989, Cornerstones, Southeast Asian Contemporary Art, Philippine Star Building, the 17th Asian International Art Exhibition, Daejeon , Korea in 2002, the Asean- Japan Fine Arts Colleges Network 2015, Yogyakarta , Indonesia and The Group Exhibition of ASEAN-China Academies of Fine Arts at the Tianjin, China in 2016.
In 2015, he attended the Frans Masereel Centrum print residency in Kasterlee, Belgium.
His works can be found in public, private and corporate collections here and abroad including those at the CCP, the World Bank , Washington DC, the Philippine Consulate in New York and the Central Bank of the Philippines among others. Endangered Icons I & II, his diptych painting represents the Philippines in the International Finance Corporation (IFC) of the World Bank art collection in Washington, DC.
He was conferred the UP Gawad Chancellor Award as the University’s Outstanding Visual Artist in 2000 . In 1978, the Cultural Center of the Philippines accorded him the Thirteen Artists Award. He was also a grantee of the Fernando Amorsolo Professorial Chair in Painting in 1992, 1996, 2002 and 2004, the UP Arts Productivity Award in 2014 and the Jose Joya Professorial Chair in 2018.
Cabangis is listed in the 2018 CCP Encyclopedia of Philippine Art, the most authoritative and comprehensive source of information on Philippine art and culture. It is an invaluable record of the Filipinos’ artistic contribution to the world.
