Nestor Olarte Vinluan

Nestor Olarte Vinluan was born in Pozorrubio, Pangasinan in 1949. Perennially inspired by “the natural world,” Vinluan continues to create works that hold an unparalleled, quiet spirituality and ethereal sublimity.

He obtained his Bachelor in Fine Arts degree from the University of Philippines’ College of Fine Arts in 1972. In 1980, he undertook and received his Masters in Fine Arts degree from the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York on a prestigious Fulbright Hays Scholarship.

From 1989 to 1998, Vinluan took a significant role as the Dean of the College of Fine Arts at the University of the Philippines (UP). It was under his stewardship that the college found its permanent home, and he too was inarguably instrumental in bringing its curricula to a higher level. His artist-in-residencies include the program on Sculpture Square, Singapore in 2004, and three years later at the Stadt•Atelier at the Kunstlerhaus in Austria’s City of Salzburg.

Because of his “new, visual thinking” unfalteringly manifested in his body of work, he was selected as one of the awardees for the Cultural Center of the Philippines’ Thirteen Artists in 1974. His art is also highly praised by several art writers and historians. Art historial Rodolfo Paras-Perez perceives Vinluan’s work as “strangely mesmerizing,” which is a highly-refined manifestation of the subjective imagery of nature. In 1979, prominent art writer Leonidas Benesa regarded Vinluan as “an artist who had uncompromisingly committed himself to high abstraction.”

With a career spanning four broad and triumphant decades, Vinluan is a highly respected force in Philippine art.