Himbon Artists, on Paper

By Martin Genodepa

Founded in 2017, HIMBON Contemporary Ilonggo Artists’ Group has remained steadfast in its mission of providing a home for local artists despite the challenges and changes it has faced over the years. The group brings together seasoned artists alongside young and aspiring creatives who are just beginning to explore their artistic journeys. It is a community where artists of different generations and levels of experience can learn, grow, and create together.

A community’s art stays alive not only through experienced artists, but also through those who are just beginning. Creativity grows and the spirit of art continues by sharing knowledge and encouraging new voices.

Art groups like Himbon are not just organizations. They are communities that support creativity. They help artists grow, learn from each other, and share their work with confidence. Art groups remind us that art blooms best together, where ideas are shared, talents are nurtured, and new possibilities open.

For almost a decade, art continues to live as a true form of individual expression in Himbon because the group is grounded in a simple purpose – to create. The group stays resilient because its heart is clear: art for the sake of art.

Art for art’s sake is the belief that the main purpose of art is to create beauty, without needing to teach a lesson, support politics, or promote morals. This 19th-century philosophy was criticized for a long time, but it is still a valid way of understanding art and can be viewed more broadly because beauty means different things to different people. Since art is created by humans, it often reflects social, political, or moral ideas, even if that is not the artist’s main goal.

Because of this, art for art’s sake can also mean expression for the sake of expression. Self-expression is one of the most important purposes of art. Through art, people communicate in a powerful way who they are, their thoughts, feelings, experiences, and identity.

Art groups in Iloilo have come and gone over the years. Those that endure are not defined by rigid rules, a fixed style, or a single aesthetic. Instead, they are built on freedom and respect for each artist’s unique expression.

Freedom and expression go hand in hand. Together, they create space for experimentation, growth, and new possibilities.

HIMBON strives to uphold these values. This is best seen in Papelarte – Playing with Paper now on view at Gawang Art Space of the UPV Museum of Art and Cultural Heritage.

Members of the group were challenged to go beyond their usual practice and create work outside of what they were accustomed to making. Through acts of cutting, assembling, recycling, staining, and reforming, the artists enter into a dialogue with paper’s delicacy that demands patience and its flexibility that invites play.

Paper quietly transformed the history of art. Portable, pliant, and intimate, it became one of the most accessible mediums for human expression. It is often the earliest companion in creativity. It is creased by small hands, marked by tentative lines, cut, folded, painted, shaped.

Across centuries, many of the world’s most significant artworks began as works on paper: studies, sketches, drafts holding the seeds of monumental paintings and sculptures. Paper’s inherent fragility makes it both appealing and overlooked. Its delicate, impermanent, and easily altered qualities lend it both vulnerability and power.

Rice paper scrolls carry philosophy in the tradition of Chinese ink painting and calligraphy.  Through origami, Japan refined paper into meditative precision. Modernists such as Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse elevated paper beyond preliminary study, transforming it into a medium of radical experimentation. Andy Warhol, David Hockney, Kara Walker, and Li Hongbo are among the contemporary artists who have expanded the expressive potential of paper through bending, layering, cutting, and sculpting it into powerful visual statements.

In the Philippines, the town of Paete has long sustained the tradition of taka (papier-mâché) that lies in the intersection of craft and art. Artists such as Imelda Cajipe-Endaya and Pablo Baens Santos have incorporated the tactility of the taka into their own contemporary vocabularies.

Today, as environmental consciousness urges a reconsideration of material use, paper occupies a renewed position of relevance. Organic and recyclable, it carries within it the possibility of transformation and return. To work with paper is to engage with material memory—tearing, folding, layering, recycling—allowing form, composition, and texture to emerge from processes of reconfiguration.

The 13 members of Himbon demonstrate the remarkable versatility of paper as an artistic medium. Harry Mark Gonzales, Ariel Pineda Eros, Escaro Endencio, Edwin de los Reyes, and Nick Llanes explore its sculptural possibilities through reliefs and assemblages. Norman Vincent Acedera extends this investigation by deconstructing the tradition of paper weaving. Charmaine Española, Anthony Castillo, and Althea Villanueva transform collage into a vehicle for personal narratives, social issues, and conceptual inquiry. Kirby Majaque continues his exploration of lenticular works that verge on three-dimensionality, while Gina Apostol, Aljerico Saraum, and Gilbert Gonzales Labordo emphasize paper’s rich textural qualities by crumpling, layering, and incorporating materials such as flowers and twine without fully turning into sculpture.

Himbon’s recent launch of its eponymous coffee table book stands as a testament to the group’s resilience and its enduring commitment to freedom of artistic expression. This same spirit animates Papelarte, where creativity unfolds through experimentation, curiosity, and play, encouraging member artists to bring forth works beyond their familiar mediums and methods.

Papelarte – Playing with Paper runs until 31 August.