Artist Statement

I’m Kath Magpantay, a Filipino-Italian artist exploring identity, memory, and representation through painting. Growing up between cultures, I often felt fragmented, praised as “exotic” in Italy and pressured to lighten my skin in the Philippines. These experiences shaped my desire to reclaim and reframe the way brown women are seen.

My work features brown women in jungle settings, naked not in vulnerability but in full presence. Their calm, direct gazes return the viewer’s gaze, shifting the power dynamic and inviting reflection. I’ve recently begun incorporating architectural structures to speak to colonial weight, while honoring ancestral strength through precolonial tattoos, jewelry, and rituals. My palette is warm, earthy, and rooted in brown as a return to land and self.

Alongside painting, I’m engaged in archival research into precolonial histories and matriarchal systems, deepening my connection to stories long buried. My art is an invitation to reflect, to question, and to see brown women, past and present, as whole, powerful, and real.