Vince Martin A. Macatangay, Kennette A. Luague, and Aldrin B. Olaguir turn human connection, workers’ struggles, and systems of power into the Grand Award-winning works of this year’s Metrobank Art & Design Excellence competition.
Art draws attention to the things we might otherwise overlook: the relationships that define our lives, the labor that sustains them, and the structures of power that invariably affect our understanding of the world. For the three Grand Awardees of the 2026 Metrobank Art & Design Excellence (MADE) competition, these ideas serve as starting points for works that invite viewers to take a closer look at these complex, interconnected parts of our society.
On September 17, 2026, emerging Filipino artists were honored at The Metropolitan Museum of Manila (The M) during the awarding ceremony for the 42nd year of MADE, the long-running program by the Metrobank Foundation dedicated to discovering and supporting new artistic talent. This year’s competition received more than 600 entries from across the Philippines, with an open theme that allowed artists to pursue their chosen subjects across three categories: Oil or Acrylic on Canvas, Mixed Media, and Sculpture.
From these entries, the jury selected Vince Martin A. Macatangay, Kennette A. Luague, and Aldrin B. Olaguir as the competition’s Grand Awardees. Their recognition comes with a ₱350,000 cash prize, a ₱150,000 scholarship to the Eskinita Art Residency Program in 2027, and the copper “More” trophy created by artist and 2007 MADE awardee Juan Sajid.
In approaching their chosen subjects, the artists explore facets of human experience that are often misunderstood or obscured by the systems around us, each piece informed by the distinct experiences, observations, and questions that guide both their lives and practices. In this feature, Lifestyle Asia explores the inspirations and impetus behind these awardees’ winning works.
READ ALSO: The 2026 Metrobank Art & Design Excellence Awardees Honored At The M
Vince Martin A. Macatangay: Seeing The Lives Beyond Our Own
Vince Martin A. Macatangay was named the Grand Awardee for Oil or Acrylic on Canvas on his first attempt at the MADE competition. His winning painting, “Sonder: Sa Bawat Mundong ‘Di Ko Matahak” (“Sonder: In Words Beyond My Reach”) takes its cue from a word that describes a feeling many of us may have experienced without knowing how to articulate it: “sonder,” the realization that every person we pass has a life as complex and vivid as our own.
Macatangay first encountered the concept through someone close to him. He recalls how the word eventually became the springboard for a painting populated by different stories, each one inaccessible to the viewer in its entirety. From there, the painting became an exercise in imagining what remains beyond our view. The figures that populate it suggest lives in progress, each carrying ambitions, relationships, and private concerns. We might encounter these people in passing, but their stories continue even after our paths diverge.
Macatangay describes the idea in particularly revealing terms: “Meaning, extra tayong lahat sa narrative nila [we’re just extras in their narratives], and someone’s life is just beyond our reach.” It’s a reminder that our own understanding of another person is oftentimes incomplete, blanks filled by what we can readily perceive or imagine.
The painting also reflects his interest in balancing realism and abstraction. For Macatangay, technical skill alone is not enough, as he explains, “Hindi ko rin pwedeng isakripisyo ang creativity para sa technical mastery, kaya need ma-balance ang realism and abstraction para mapafeel ko din sa lahat na patungo pa rin ito sa isang emotional landscape.” [“I also can’t sacrifice creativity for technical mastery, so I need to balance realism and abstraction to make everyone feel that the work is still leading toward an emotional landscape.”]
His approach to the competition was similarly intentional. Encouraged to join by Ambassador Jose Maria Cariño, Macatangay initially questioned whether he was ready. Now in his early 20s, considered waiting until his late 20s or early 30s before attempting what he regarded as one of the highest accolades an emerging artist could pursue.
“Hindi ko rin po inakala na sa early twenties ko ay makakasali ako sa ganitong competition at magiging champion agad, kasi most of the stories ng iba [participants] na paulit-ulit na ipinapasok sa competition,” he tells Lifestyle Asia. “Kaya blessed po ako na sa unang pag sali ko pa lang ay nanalo na po ako.” [“I never expected to join this competition in my early twenties and become a champion right away, especially since I’ve heard that many participants submit their works to the competition repeatedly. So, I feel blessed to have won on my very first try.”]
Winning on his first try has affirmed a direction he’s still working toward, giving him reason to keep developing his practice while opening the possibility of a wider artistic community. Macatangay describes himself as an artist who largely works from home, and one of his hopes following the award is to connect with more peers through exhibitions, residencies, and other opportunities. He’s also interested in allowing his work to mature before rushing toward his next major presentation.
For now, his ambition finds its heart in the kind of questions that inspired his winning painting in the first place: how we see others, how much of their lives we can ever truly know, and what happens when we recognize that we’re not main characters in the larger story.
Kennette A. Luague: The Workers Behind The Everyday
For Kennette A. Luague, the Grand Awardee for Mixed Media, the realities of Filipino workers aren’t distant subjects observed from the outside. They’re experiences he understands personally, and his practice of Social Realism gives these lives and struggles a place in the foreground.
His winning work “Taya” [“Bet”] centers on a person caught within a difficult system—in a more literal sense, pinned against a wheel of fortune in which the everyday concerns of workers are depicted: water and electricity, family, housing, food, livelihood. Yet the worker is sustained by the hope and determination that allow them to face life’s uncertainties. Luague draws particular inspiration from professionals who make daily sacrifices for their families and their futures, often placing their own well-being at stake in the process.
“Hindi siya simpleng biktima ng pagkakataon, kundi isang taong matapang na tumataya sa sariling kapalaran upang harapin ang bawat hamon sa buhay,” he explains. [“They’re not merely a victim of circumstance, but a courageous individual who wagers on his own fate to face every challenge in life.”] The nuance lies in that distinction: rather than depicting workers solely through their hardships, Luague presents them as people with agency, willing to take risks and confront circumstances that seem beyond their control.
This perspective is closely tied to his own background. Her father, a construction worker who served as a source of inspiration for his piece. “Bukod dito, malaki rin ang naging epekto ng aking sariling karanasan bilang manggagawa, dahil mas naging malalim ang aking pag-unawa sa kalagayan, sakripisyo, at pakikibaka ng mga ordinaryong manggagawang Pilipino,” he explains. [“Beyond this, my own experience as a worker also had a significant impact, deepening my understanding of the circumstances, sacrifices, and struggles of ordinary Filipino workers.”]
Luague began painting on canvas before gradually incorporating other materials into his practice. For his MADE entry, he started with a study or sketch, then looked around for materials that could help convey his ideas, eventually using wood and billiard cloth to complete the piece. He also acknowledges the influence of artists Manny Garibay, Mark Justiniani, Joe Geraldo, Nune Alvarado, and Adonis Sollano on his journey. Their mentorship, alongside his own experiences, helped him develop his practice.
Looking ahead, Luague hopes to exhibit his work before wider audiences, creating more opportunities to communicate the realities, sacrifices, and struggles of Filipino laborers. Recognition through MADE is an opportunity to continue this work and reach people who might not otherwise encounter these stories.
“Ang aking hangarin na magkaroon ng mas maraming oportunidad sa art scene ang nagtulak sa akin na sumali sa MADE,” he shares. “Naniniwala ako na ang pagiging semi-finalist ay magbubukas ng mas maraming pinto ng oportunidad upang maipakita ko pa ang aking sining, mapalawak ang aking karanasan, at mas maiparating sa mas maraming tao ang mga mensaheng nais kong ipahayag tungkol sa kalagayan ng mga manggagawa.” [My desire to find more opportunities in the art scene motivated me to join MADE,” he shares. [“I believe that becoming a semi-finalist will open more doors for me to showcase my art, broaden my experience, and bring the messages I wish to convey about the conditions of workers to a wider audience.”]
It’s this commitment to the subject that gives his work its urgency. By centering people whose labor is often taken for granted, Luague asks viewers to consider the lives behind the everyday systems they depend on, and the determination required to keep those lives moving forward.
Aldrin B. Olaguir: When the Sacred Becomes Unsettling
Aldrin B. Olaguir’s Grand Award-winning sculpture, Hinahalal, Binabanal (“The Chosen, the Sanctified”), begins with an object familiar to the majority-Catholic Filipino population: the holy water font found in churches. But where one might expect water for cleansing and renewal, Olaguir presents a deliberately dry basin, interrupted by the imposing presence of a crocodile or buwaya.
What you see is a familiar religious form rendered strange, its expected function suspended. The crocodile, a recurring symbol of greed, power, and corruption (its Filipino equivalent, kurakot, often emblazoned with the crocodile motif on protest posters) in the work’s conceptual framework, sits in tension with an object associated with purification and protection. These contradictory elements prompt questions about how certain behaviors become normalized, even when their moral implications remain troubling.
Olaguir explains that the sculpture “explores the idea of ‘necessary evil’ and how repeated choices can gradually become justified or even perceived as sacred.” The title reinforces this tension. What’s chosen can eventually be sanctified; what might’ve been considered unacceptable can, through repetition and the authority of established systems, come to seem ordinary or even virtuous. Rather than offering a straightforward answer, the work asks viewers to examine the distance between the symbols they trust and the realities those symbols may conceal.
Olaguir’s decision to work in sculpture is integral to this reading. During the interview, he explained that his choice of medium depends on the relationship between an idea and how effectively a material can communicate it. His practice often involves reworking familiar cultural forms to question the values and meanings attached to them.“I use recognizable references and object reconfiguration to shift symbolic weight and question how ideas become normalized or justified,” he explains. The sculpture’s force lies partly in the moment of hesitation it elicits through subversion: the instant when a familiar object no longer behaves as expected and the viewer must confront the contradiction at its center.
This interest is also connected to his broader engagement with postcolonial experience, inherited moral systems, and fragmented histories. Olaguir approaches material as an active part of the artistic process, using its qualities and transformations to examine memory, and the ways historical narratives are preserved or distorted. He credits filmmaker and screenwriter Bing Lau as an important influence on his thinking, particularly in developing a work’s content and finding a narrative framework for an idea. The experience helped him approach art as a process of constructing meaning, starting with an object and considering the stories it might hold or provoke.
Olaguir’s interest in challenging familiar narratives also affects his view on what art should accomplish. When asked what he hopes to pursue after the award, he offered a concise ambition in his interview with Lifestyle Asia: “Create more works of art that will make people stop, reflect, and question.”
For Olaguir, the recognition also offers an opportunity to continue developing a practice centered on experimentation and conceptual inquiry. He hopes to explore more spatial and installation-based approaches, participate in local and regional exhibitions, and pursue collaborations that engage with material practice and cultural narratives.
He’s particularly looking forward to the Eskinita Art Residency Program, which he sees as a valuable opportunity for mentorship and sustained artistic exchange. In an art environment where such conversations can be difficult to access, the chance to learn alongside other practitioners could help him refine the ideas and processes behind his work.
Oftentimes, the public may view competitions as a one-way dynamic, where an organization provides artists with the resources and opportunities to cultivate their craft and take their practice further. Yet the reality is a two-way street, with the artists’ works offering just as much value to the public. This exchange is on view at TRAVERSE: Creativity in Motion, a free exhibition featuring nearly 100 works by the 2026 MADE awardees, finalists, and semifinalists. The three Grand Award-winning pieces, in particular, offer an incisive reminder of what art can do: make us reconsider what we think we know and pay closer attention to the realities that surround us.
All photos courtesy of the Metrobank Foundation (unless specified)
Frequently Asked Questions
The 2026 MADE Grand Awardees are Vince Martin A. Macatangay for Oil or Acrylic on Canvas, Kennette A. Luague for Mixed Media, and Aldrin B. Olaguir for Sculpture.
Vince Martin A. Macatangay’s “Sonder: Sa Bawat Mundong ‘Di Ko Matahak” explores the complexity of other people’s lives and the limits of what we can know about them. Kennette A. Luague’s “Taya” highlights the struggles, sacrifices, and determination of Filipino workers. Aldrin B. Olaguir’s “Hinahalal, Binabanal” examines how repeated choices and systems of power can make questionable behavior appear acceptable or even sacred.
Each Grand Awardee receives a ₱350,000 cash prize, a ₱150,000 scholarship to the Eskinita Art Residency Program in 2027, and the copper “More” trophy created by artist and 2007 MADE awardee Juan Sajid.
The MADE competition has three categories: Oil or Acrylic on Canvas, Mixed Media, and Sculpture. Its open theme allows participating artists to explore subjects that reflect their individual experiences, observations, and artistic practices.
The public can view nearly 100 works by the 2026 MADE awardees, finalists, and semifinalists at TRAVERSE: Creativity in Motion, a free exhibition featuring works from this year’s competition.
