Bio

Manalo has been showing her work nationally and throughout the Washington DC area since 1999 when she completed her MFA in Painting at Yale University. She received her BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a BA from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Her work has been shown at the McLean Project for the Arts, Arlington Art Center, the Katzen Arts Center and the Corcoran Gallery of Art. She was featured in New American Paintings in 2004 and 2006. She currently is part of the Adjunct Faculty at American University’s Art Department where she has been teaching since 2000. Her work is a part of numerous private and public collections.

My work has been and continues to be a personal investigation and exploration of the sadder side of the human condition and its relationship with nature as a stage. Most recently I have been exploring this relationship in the realm of the world of my two young children using both exterior and interior places.

I am fascinated by the photograph. One whole narrative often captured in one frame. Changing and translating the photograph into a painting seems to create another layer of arresting the moment in a way that makes it even more distanced and melancholy. The negative white space has always been prevalent in my work as a source of an almost apocalyptic white light in order to create a picture where the positive is emerging from that light. This is evident in my most current work where I am using water based oils in a layered brushy application towards creating a fuzzy, haunting effect.

Isabel Manalo
2008