Plet Bolipata exhibit runs March 14-31, with viewing hours from 1p.m.-6p.m., Mondays Fridays, at Vetted, Unit 126, Mile Long building, Amorsolo Street corner V. Rufino Street, Makati City.
In her latest exhibition, Plet Bolipata gathers a body of work born from solitude, reinvention, surreal fantasies, and fearless experimentation. Titled The time has come, BOLIPATA said, to talk of many things, it signals both reflection and arrival—a declaration by an artist who continues to evolve on her own terms.
Self-portrait as lithographer at the Art Students League, NY 2025
Self Portrait in Room 12
‘Borlongan Patiently Waiting for me in the
Nordstrom Cafe, New York 2025′
Bolipata, co-founder of Pasilyo Press and B-Hive Gallery with her husband, Elmer Borlongan, lives and works in a mango orchard in San Antonio, Zambales, where art and daily life intersect. A self-taught painter, she began her journey in the late 1980s, in what she describes as “the twilight of my aloneness.”
Though raised among musically gifted siblings, she did not initially see herself as an artist—until a pivotal encounter in the studio of her uncle by affinity, National Artist Federico Alcuaz. Surrounded by the scent of oils and turpentine, recognition struck. “I know who I am. I am a painter,” she declared—and from then on, she marched toward that truth.
Bolipata’s accordion-fold art books’ inside pages.
An unexpected return to New York in January 2025 catalyzed a new chapter. Revisiting the Art Students League of New York, where she studied in 1992, Bolipata immersed herself once more in drawing and, this time, lithography.
By day, she attended to obligations; by night, she surrendered to art-making. Armed with Posca acrylic paint markers and a sketchbook, she sketched cafe patrons, New York’s landscape and denizens—quick, spontaneous studies completed later in the quiet of her brother’s apartment. The portability and immediacy of the medium sharpened her draftsmanship, demanding precision and decisiveness.
Lithograph 1
Lithograph 6
Lithography, with its physical rigor and unforgiving surface, further expanded her discipline. “It takes your hand directly to the stone,” she notes. The process—washing and rubbing limestone, committing marks without hesitation—proved exacting, strengthening both her stamina and her certainty.
This exhibition assembles works from her recent period of discovery along with paintings that convey familial nostalgia and surreal fantasies. Three canvases revisit her childhood, growing up among prodigious siblings. A trio of oval works, framed in patterned cloth of her choosing, imagine an intimate kinship with Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera—a meditation on womanhood, authorship, fertility, and the complexities of standing beside a celebrated artist-husband.
Splendor in the Grass
Storytelling anchors Bolipata’s practice. Personal history—real, reimagined, and symbolic—animates her compositions. Form challenges her; color propels her. Blue lifts her toward the heavens, orange roots her to the earth.
Bistro Verde on 57th Street
Flurries, No Worries
The exhibition captures an artist fine-tuning her voice with clarity and conviction. Imperfect yet assured, the works on show affirm the power of exploration—and the enduring possibility of growth at any stage of life.
“The time has come,” Bolipata said, “to talk of many things.” runs March 14-31 with viewing hours from 1PM-6PM, Mondays Fridays, at Vetted, Unit 126, Mile Long building, Amorsolo Street corner V. Rufino Street, Makati City. For inquiries, call 0917 5262339.
