Co-founder of Tarzeer Pictures and FotomotoPH
By Alana Malika

A&M's Fresh Faces is where we profile an emerging artist from the region every month and speak to them about how they kick-started their career, how they continue to sustain their practice and what drives them as artists. Read our profile on Gio Panlilio here.

Tell us about your education background. Could you describe your experience and how it has impacted your practice?

I went to school in New York for Economics so my background had nothing to do with the creative industry or the arts. Initially, I gravitated towards economic theories and its varied perspectives because it offered a framework to understand the world. However, once my course of study shifted into the more concrete language of math, predictions/forecasts, I realised that I could not imagine myself continuing to work that way for long. Living in New York and having access to its museums and art spaces offered me an informal education that revealed an entirely new way of interacting with and interpreting what was around me. Looking back, maybe my initial curiosity in economic theory frameworks converted into an attraction to articulation and interpretation which I found in those museums and galleries.

Installation view of ‘A History of Hollows’ (2024) by Micaela Benedicto at Tarzeer Pictures. Image courtesy of Gio Panlilio.

Installation view of ‘Who Needs a Blade?’ (2024) by Renzo Navarro at Tarzeer Pictures. Image courtesy of Gio Panlilio.

Who has been a mentor or an important artistic influence? And why?

My friends and co-founders at Tarzeer Pictures, Enzo Razon and Dinesh Mohnani. Tarzeer Pictures is a photography gallery and production agency we started in 2017. We were fresh college graduates with little professional experience and a desire to build something together. Since then, I have been on an adventure that I can only imagine embarking on with Enzo and Dinesh. What we have learnt as a team and what I have learnt from them has had an indelible impact on me as an artist and a person.

How has the local art scene inspired your work at Tarzeer Pictures and your individual practice?

Collaboration is the foundation of Tarzeer Pictures - both for the gallery and the creative agency. Having a foot in both worlds has allowed us to approach our agency projects with the same artistic intent as our gallery shows and vice versa—many of our production processes carry over into the building of our exhibitions.

The work I do for Tarzeer and my own personal practice are nearly inseparable. The process of setting up exhibitions and the collaborations along the way all inform my own practice.

Gio Panlilio, ‘Vessel I’, 2024, photograph collage. Image courtesy of the artist.

While your earlier work focused on documentary-style photography, your current work delves into conceptual photography. How did your approach evolve over time? Could you recall any experiences that became turning points in your practice?

While documentary photography and “found” photography will always be the foundation of my art making, I slowly found myself yearning for more intentional decision making in my practice. I wanted a process that could combine the intuitive approach to taking photographs out in the world with the flexibility and freedom of playful imagination.

My project ‘View’ became the first instance of this experimentation with collage and playing with semi-fictional narratives in my work. I realised I could use images as raw materials; building blocks to create an image that, while taken from reality, is slightly adjacent to it.

“I realised I could use images as raw materials; building blocks to create an image that, while taken from reality, is slightly adjacent to it.”

Installation view of ‘Temporary Constellations’ (2024) at Artinformal Gallery. Image courtesy of Gio Panlilio.

Your latest solo exhibition ‘Temporary Constellations’ (2024) at Artinformal Gallery features a series of works that utilises collage making as a method of abstraction. Tell us more about this development in your work.

I think ‘Temporary Constellations’ marks another milestone in my process. Maybe it is too soon to tell where it will lead me after, but it is the first time I have explored abstraction, a total departure from the representation quality of the documentary work I started with.

In the last few years, I have found myself focusing on subject matters that are immediately around me, in the domesticity of my home. While my work up until this point has been about tracking changing states, for ‘Temporary Constellations’, I was interested in what remains constant. In this case, the way that ambient light from the outside falls into the bare walls of my newly emptied apartment. Each work consists of an image of the light cast on a bare wall of the apartment that I have collaged to create images that are again filled with the weight of texture, shape and form.

Could you share your favourite art space or gallery in Manila/ Philippines? Why are you drawn to that space and what does it offer to you/ your practice?

Kaput - it’s a nomadic event that is part art installation, part rave run by artist Derek Tumala. These are held roughly once a quarter, and the transience of these gatherings imbue the interactions and conversations that happen within it with a sense of presence that I have not experienced elsewhere. Many people I have met or spoken to at Kaput have gone on to be close friends and collaborators.

What are your hopes for your own local art scene, and regionally as well? How do you channel these hopes into your organisational work in FotomotoPH?

For photography, our hope is always audience expansion. This is true for the work I do in both Tarzeer Pictures and FotomotoPH. While our approach with Tarzeer is more focused on single/duo presentations, FotomotoPH’s main goal is to explore the breadth of photographic practice throughout the Philippines. Much of our energy as an organisation goes to building relationships with regional art spaces throughout the country and working with photographers and artists outside of Metro Manila. By creating connections between these art spaces and artists, we hope to continue to foster further collaborations across the region.