


Visual Artist
Iya
Regalario
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Iya Regalario (b. 1987, Sta. Maria, Bulacan) is a visual artist and illustrator from the Philippines, more known for her pyrography (wood burning) paintings. She is also a public muralist for Sulo Projects and a comics illustrator for Malantot Comix.
Her works serve as an extension of her personal views of the world, covering themes that express her constantly evolving cultural identity as a Filipino. For Regalario, illustration has become a means of expressing her deep sentiments on issues on identity, politics, philosophy, media, and the environment. Her method often involves looking into the literature of a certain point of interest, gathering inspiration from written stories or published media, and transcending thought and emotion into symbolic and literal representations. She dabbles often with mythology, history, and nature as seen in the recurring appearance of mythological characters, and plants and animal species in her works.
For Regalario, public art is vital in keeping an artist's work fiery and grounded, and that the essence of one's art practice lies in the development of her own identity by way of discovering her place in the world freely as an individual and as part of a greater community.
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Regalario graduated with a Bachelor's degree on Humanities (2008) and a Masterals degree in Communication (2014) from the Ateneo de Manila University. In 2018, she dropped her pursuits of a Doctorate degree in Media Studies from the University of the Philippines to pursue her career as a full-time artist.
She has had several solo and groups shows, and has consistently traveled across the Philippines to join art festivals and cause-oriented programs. She is also the illustrator and designer of published environmental books such as "The Ateneo Wild" for the Ateneo Institute of Sustainability (2020), and the "Pelagic Seabirds of the Philippines" for ISLA Biodiversity (2022).