Manuel Ocampo is a celebrated painter recognized for his agile stylistic shifts and incisive engagements with the contradictions of contemporary painting. Ocampo’s prolific practice explores the tension between an artwork’s surface appearance and its embedded cultural, religious, and historical meanings, often using strategies of irony, grotesque figuration, and layered references drawn from Western art history and Philippine iconography. His approach is marked by sudden transitions in aesthetic, technique, and emphasis, continually challenging what constitutes legitimacy and authority in painting.

Ocampo has maintained a vital international profile for over three decades. He gained early recognition with significant presentations at major institutions, notably representing the Philippines at the Venice Biennale (1993) and being included in Documenta IX (1992) in Kassel, Germany. His participation in the influential exhibition “Helter Skelter: L.A. Art in the 1990s” at The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (1992), further established his role in shaping contemporary discourse. In the following decades, Ocampo exhibited widely across Europe, Asia, and the Americas, continuing to evolve his language in response to new geographies and histories.

In recent years, Ocampo’s works have been featured in major international biennales and museum surveys, consolidating his impact on global contemporary art. Notably, he participated in the 10th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (APT10) in Brisbane, Australia (2021-2022), and his solo exhibition “Casket for the Soul of the Fat Lady” was presented at the Vargas Museum, University of the Philippines (2022). His art was also included in “SUNSHOWER: Contemporary Art from Southeast Asia 1980s to Now” co-organized by the Mori Art Museum, Tokyo (2017).