A Bold New Genre: First Book Arts Solo Exhibition Opens in the Philippines

Book artist Veronica Laurel opens her debut solo exhibition titled "Beautifully Damned" on September 25 at the Big Room in Art Informal Gallery. An exhibition depicting the fragile human condition through a fusion of book arts and wooden sculptures.

Veronica Laurel presents book arts as a new genre in the Philippine Contemporary Art with her show. Her first exhibition is a brave introduction and promising beginning for book arts in the Philippine art scene.

Laurel’s work delves into the complicated state of the human condition in its chaotic frustrations and fragile undertakings. Under the discipline of book arts, it opens up new possibilities in the local contemporary art scene as it is a new and an exciting genre that has fluorished in North America and Europe.

Book arts has been a growing movement globally with more and more practitioners each year and a wide audience but has yet to be grasped in South East Asia.

Beautifully Damned as a solo show is a portraiture of human emotions and conditions through sculptural book art forms, the raw and genuine spirit covered up by society’s demanded pretensions. 

In her artworks are three main elements that play a huge role in its construction such as paper, wood, and glass.  She uses bookarts to carry out the essence of the artwork then wood and glass as the vessel, similar to having a body and soul. The Philippine art industry has many talented artists often falling under traditional disciplines. Veronica Laurel as an artist dares to add a new genre in Philippine contemporary art that can compete internationally.

Book arts has been a growing movement globally with more and more practitioners each year and a wide audience but has yet to be grasped in South East Asia.


Veronica Laurel is a book artist based in Sta Rosa City. She studied book binding on her own and learned wood carving in Paete, Laguna. Growing up in a family of carpenters, she developed skills in working with wood.

She has exhibited across manila in group exhibitions at venues such as the Ayala Museum, White Space Makati, and The Tower Club among others.

Location of Art Informal
277 Connecticut St. Mandaluyong City. Near Greenhills.

About Veronica Laurel

Veronica Laurel is a book artist who has her studio in her hometown of Sta. Rosa City, Laguna. There she works passionately on commissions such as in book binding, furniture design and creation, as well as wood carving.


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