Artist Statement
I paint brown women resting together. They inhabit a shared space of warmth and stillness, holding one another and meeting the viewer’s eyes. Through them, I explore brownness as both color and condition: a language of belonging, rest, and quiet resistance.
My practice began as a reflection on colorism and how it shaped my sense of self. Through painting, I learned to love my own skin and its shades of kayumanggi, the Filipino concept of brownness that carries self-love, healing, and acceptance. Warm tones recall the light and textures of the Philippines, the colors of home and memory that stay with me across distance.
Through color, symbol, and composition, I translate emotion into form: the yearning for collectivity, the tenderness of togetherness, and the quiet insistence on existing fully and gently. The women I paint are often nude, not to be objectified, but to embody vulnerability as the highest form of authenticity: a language of truth and presence.
I am working on a new body of work, an extension of my ongoing research, exploring how brown bodies reclaim tenderness and belonging through rest as both a personal gesture and a collective form of resistance.
Biography
Kath Magpantay (b. 1995) is a Filipino-Italian artist based in Milan. Born to Filipino parents, she grew up between Italy and the Philippines, an experience that shaped her understanding of hybridity and belonging. Moving between these two cultural contexts revealed how colonial mentality, inherited and reinforced across generations, continues to affect self-perception both in the Philippines and throughout the diaspora.
She began painting in 2020 during the pandemic, when art became a space for reflection on identity and memory. Her work has since evolved into a practice that connects personal experience with broader cultural narratives.
Kath’s first exhibition took place in 2022, in a collective show organized by the Philippine Consulate General in Milan, to celebrate 75 years of diplomatic relations between Italy and the Philippines. She has since presented her work internationally at World Art Dubai (2025) and in cultural programs such as Fondazione ISMU’s Project AWAKE (2024) and BookCity Milano (2023).
Her recent initiatives, Paint and Tagay and Tanaw Creatives, extend her practice into community and dialogue, connecting Filipino and diasporic voices through shared creative experience.