Renato Habulan

(b. 1953, Manila, Philippines)

Renato Habulan is considered one of the most important figures in the Social Realism, the main artistic current of the 1970s and 1980s in the Philippines. Emerging from the period of Martial Law in the Philippines, Habulan masterfully presents the poignant human condition amidst varying themes of social justice and religious imagery. In his works, Renato Habulan constantly explores the dialectics where the master and slave, native and colonial, lowlander and the ethnic collide in controlled tension. Renato Habulan graduated from the University of the East School of Fine Arts in 1976. Coming from a working class family in Tondo, he developed awareness of the deteriorating social conditions and struggle of the workers. He was one of the major members of Kaisahan, a group of socially committed artists during the period of dictatorship in the Philippines’ Martial Law era in the 1970s. He is also a member of the Concerned Artists of the Philippines. Also an award-winning watercolorist, Habulan represented the Philippines in the 1995 Cheju Biennale, South Korea and cited as a Cultural Center of the Philippines 13 Artists awardee in 1990.