Rey Paz Contreras
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Rey Paz Contreras (born August 31, 1950) is a prominent Filipino sculptor working with urban refuse and environmental materials as artistic media. He is inspired by the indigenous Filipino culture and creates visual forms of contemporary images that explore a distinct Filipino aesthetics. He currently has his studio near the railroad tracks in Tondo, Manila, where he conducts his community-based art training to promote a socially-responsive 'people's art' that has developed into the Daambakal Sculptors Collective. Contreras' pioneered the use of travieza or hardwood railroad tracks during the late 70s.
An activist during the repressive Marcos regime, Contreras employed his art as a form of agency. Using local and available materials, he critics the local artists' dependence on foreign art, not only in media but also in concept and form. This rejection of the western cultural hegemony as form of anti-colonial, anti-fascist sentiment and was part of the broader Social Realism art movement in the Philippines.
Contreras' significant contribution to the development of contemporary Filipino/Philippine art has been recognized by various art organizations and cultural intitutions since the early 1990s. He was conferred the prestigious Patnubay ng Lahi Award by the City of Manila in 1992. That same year, he was awarded the Grand Prize at the Art Association of the Philippines Annual Art Competition - Sculpture Category. In 1994, he was the recipient of the 1st Bonifacio Art Foundation Inc. Public Art Competition, his sculptural monument entitled The Trees is the first permanent structure unveiled at the Bonifacio Global City in Taguig, Metro Manila. Insitutions that have the work of Contreras in its permanent collection includes the National Museum, Cultural Center of the Philippines, GSIS Museo ng Sining, GMA Network and BAFI. He has conducted sculptural training workshop in the regions and has been invited to exhibit in Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, and the US.
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