Guy and Pablo Concepcion
Days before the exhibition Home Studio: A Father and Son opened at Museo Pambata on July 18, Olympian swimmer René Francisco “Guy” Concepcion said he and his son Pablo dropped by to check the set-up, and Pablo was stoked. Museo Pambata’s Galleries 3 and 4 have recreated the duo’s place in Presidio, San Francisco, where they’re based: It isn’t a formal artist’s studio but their home.
Guy Concepcion autographing ‘Home Studio’ brochures
Guy and Pablo’s art journey started when the boy was just 3 years old and turned the family home—including the bathroom tiles—into his canvas. Pablo is now 16 and will be a junior high student at the Archbishop Riordan High School in the fall. Home Studio is their first exhibit in a museum; their other three were held at Chef Jessie Rockwell Club in Makati that started in 2024.
“It’s a big accomplishment for me to bring my work into a museum when I used to make them at home,” remarked Pablo at the exhibit opening, adding that he drew whatever came to mind—like his dog—or interested him.
One of his works on exhibit is a portrait of his father, which he did in 2019. Guy’s quip, “He was forced to draw his dad,” had everyone present laughing.
‘Providence’ (mixed media) by Guy Concepcion
Home Studio, which runs until August 19, showcases the Concepcions’ paintings, collages, and illustrations that reflect their shared creative journey and how they overcame their struggles with art.
Wilma Santos-Huang, president and member of the board of trustees of the Museo Pambata Foundation, Inc., couldn’t hide her excitement on opening day. It was a momentous event for everyone: It’s the Concepcions’ first museum exhibit, and Pablo is the Museo’s first youth artist.
“They’re welcoming us to their ‘home studio,’” Wilma said in her welcome remarks. “Behind the artistry is a love for Guy’s second son, Rory.”
Significantly, Home Studio celebrates creativity, opening people’s eyes to the idea that a home can be a studio where everyday moments ignite the imagination and strengthen family ties. Likewise, it’s a note of hope for families raising children with disabilities or navigating serious medical challenges; it tells them that creativity encourages healing and togetherness.
Holding Home Studio came to fruition by happenstance. Wilma was having dinner with Guy’s cousin, who, in their conversations, mentioned that Guy had been selected as an Olympian artist (Olympian athletes who are artists). He and six other artists were to have their original works spotlighting Olympic values displayed at the Olympic Museum during the 2024 games in Paris.
Pablo Concepcion, Guy Concepcion, and Wilma Santos-Huang, Museo Pambata Foundation’s president and member of the board of trustees, at the exhibit opening
Eventually, Guy and Wilma met and, he said jokingly, “I twisted her arm and now we have an exhibit at Museo Pambata.”
‘Cal Swimming’ (acrylic on canvas) is Guy’s homage to his and Akiko Thomson-Guevara’s alma mater, UC Berkeley.
Guy was a swimmer before carving a career in art. Though born in San Francisco, he spent most of his life in the Philippines and was taught by his mother how to swim in the family pool. Later, he trained and competed in America, participating in intercollegiate swimming at UC Berkeley. He became a member of the Philippine national swim team and competed in the 1988 Seoul Olympics in the freestyle (100 and 200 m) and individual medley (200 and 400 m) events. He was also a multiple national record holder and a Southeast Asian (SEA) Games gold medalist.
Online research would show that Guy, an advocate of open-water swimming or swimming in natural waters, turned to coaching after retiring from competitive swimming. He coached De La Salle University’s Green and Lady Tankers from 2002 to 2012, leading the Green Archers to five titles—three for the men’s team and two for the women’s team—at the annual University Athletic Association of the Philippines (UAAP). He also served as head coach of the Philippine national team for the 2003 SEA Games and the 1994 and 2003 SEA Age Group Championships.
At the exhibit opening, Guy said that while he was a swimmer, he also wanted to write and do film. He enrolled at Columbia University in New York, where he was classmates with the directors of the Avengers franchise, Anthony and Joe Russo. He completed a master’s degree in fine arts with a concentration on film directing, but he never made films. Instead, he went into visual arts, which became a restorative outlet for him and his family.
Guy actually completed a master’s degree in fine arts with a concentration on film directing, but he never made films. Instead, he went into visual arts
Guy’s second son, Rory, was the major reason for his foray into visual arts. Rory, who has Down Syndrome, was diagnosed with leukemia when he was barely two years old, prompting the family’s relocation—temporary then—to America for treatments. The hospital visits and chemotherapy sessions weren’t a walk in the park. Once, to ease the heaviness in their hearts, he and Pablo visited an art store.
“I felt like I was in Disneyland in the store,” Guy recalled. “Art became our outlet.”
‘Dinosaurs 2’ by Pablo Concepcion
Art drew Guy and his sons closer. It started Guy and Pablo’s journey, from getting an art teacher for Pablo, to Guy sitting in to spend more time with Pablo, and eventually to Guy plunging into art himself. Their bond got stronger when they faced Rory’s diagnosis and treatment sessions (he’s better now). Now their home is their studio where they do their art, with Rory sitting close and also busy with his art.
Guy incorporated materials from his house and from his kids in his collages—his choice of medium—which, he said, are memory banks to hold on to his children’s childhood. He has used varied materials in his works like bag tags, clippings, fabric, photos, Polaroids, ribbons, stickers, torn book pages, and wood. For example, Positive Citizenship has Rory’s doodles and Pablo’s dinosaurs (a subject that Pablo is fond of drawing) which he set against the Positive Citizenship award one of his boys received at school.
“I wanted Pablo to see that a household can and will have art,” said Guy, who started painting on a “daily, consistent basis” in 2015. “My household has art because we’re creating it. It’s a conscious effort to make Pablo see that creating is something we could do, in whatever field he gets in in the future.”
‘Portrait of my Dad’ (mixed media) by Pablo Concepcion
But art was never just an outlet or hobby for him because, as he explained, “It’s who I am. I can’t separate my identity as dad from being an artist.”
Before the Home Studio exhibit, Guy was part of the 2024 Olympic Games exhibit in Paris. Notably, he was the only Asian and first Filipino artist to join the show, which featured his works Beyond the Box, Producer, Courage, Host City, and Slides and Ladders.
Guy with Akiko Thomson-Guevara at the exhibition opening
The impetus to join came from three-time Olympian swimmer Akiko Thomson-Guevara, his former national teammate and now chair of the board of the Special Olympics Pilipinas: She had emailed him about the Olympian Artist Programme for 2024. With Akiko’s encouragement Guy applied to the program a year before the games, and the following year he was looking at his artworks exhibited at the Olympic Museum. (The Olympian Artist Programme, launched in 2018, promotes the artistic talents of Olympians and Paralympians.)
“When I walked into the exhibit, I felt happy representing the Philippines,” Guy said. “It was nice to have the Philippine flag flying in a global arena.” At the exhibit, he had a chance meeting with a compatriot who told him excitedly, “It’s so nice that the Philippines is represented!” At which point he proudly revealed that he was the featured artist.
Swimming and art are two obviously diverse fields, but not to Guy. As a swimmer, he said, he saw his races as something artistic and his competitions like stage performances. “My best performances were transcendent, that when you are in a zone you don’t even realize how it happened, you just raced and the results felt fantastic,” he said in the Q&A section in olympics.com.
In comparison, he said, he always felt incredulous when he looked at his artworks, so that he often asked himself if he actually made them. And it’s this space between disbelief mixed with awe and reality that, he asserted, “an athlete and an artist long to return to that transcendent feeling, therefore, we keep swimming or painting.”
Ultimately, for Guy, whether it’s swimming or painting, the important thing is to do what one likes, and one will be successful. He qualified that he doesn’t measure success in terms of selling his works or mounting them in a formal exhibition venue.
“The fact that I finished a piece and I’m happy with it is success,” he said.
Pablo, who plays the flute and trombone in school, is a chip off the old block. “Stick to your interests,” he declared. “I kept drawing dinosaurs until seventh grade and nobody cared, but I kept drawing, and look where it got me.”
Museo Pambata’s Galleries 3 and 4 have been transformed into Guy and Pablo’s home studio.
‘Home Studio’ runs until Aug. 19. Museo Pambata, on Roxas Boulevard corner South Drive, Ermita, Manila, is open from 10 am to 5 pm on Fridays and Saturdays and 1 pm to 5 pm on Sundays. Admission fees per person are ₱450 and ₱650 (with guided tour, storytelling, and arts and crafts.
