Renowned artist Norberto “Peewee” Roldan mounts another exhibition in his native Roxas City and pays tribute to San Antonio Resort, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary.
“On the Waterfront” features Peewee’s selected works at the imposing lobby of San Antonio Resort.
One of the works, The Pretenders #14 (2016), is a diptych painting with the image of Marlon Brando and Eva Marie Saint from the movie On the Waterfront (1954). Considered one of the greatest Hollywood films ever made, it won 8 Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Director for Elia Kazan, Best Actor for Brando and Best Supporting Actress for Saint. The artwork—likewise the film—offers a parallel tribute to San Antonio Resort, whose omnipresence on the waterfront of Baybay Beach has become a landmark in Roxas City.
The painting is juxtaposed with a panel painted with text lifted from the novel The Pretenders (1962) written by National Artist for Literature F. Sionil Jose. The main protagonist in this historical saga set in Manila in the 1950s following the years after the Second World War is named Antonio Samson (Tony).
It was Peewee who designed the resort’s logo for co-founder Atty. Antonio “Tony” Ortiz in 1998, the year he resigned as creative director of ABS-CBN Broadcasting Corp. and began practicing as a freelance graphic designer in Metro Manila.
By 2000, Peewee would co-found the Green Papaya Art Projects in Quezon City. It was the longest-running artist-led space in Metro Manila.
Peewee moved back to Roxas City in 2022 and currently pursuing his practice and cultural work in Barangay Dinginan.
Peewee is recognized abroad as a Filipino multimedia artist whose practice is rooted in social and political issues. His installations, assemblages, and paintings of found objects text fragments, and found images address issues surrounding everyday life, history, and collective memory.
Peewee’s artistic process engages with ways in which material objects are reappropriated in another context.
Peewee’s works are in permanent and private collections of Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City; Rhode Island School of Design Textile Museum; San Francisco Asian Art Museum; Fukuoka Asian Art Museum; Singapore Art Museum; National Gallery Singapore; United States Embassy in the Philippines; Deutsche Bank-Manila; Ayala Corporation; San Miguel Corporation; and the Banko Sentral ng Pilipinas.
Peewee graduated with a degree in BA Philosophy from St. Pius X Seminary, took his BFA in Advertising from the University of Santo Tomas, and MA in Art Studies at the University of the Philippines (UP Diliman).
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Exhibition has opened last July 4, 2025 and runs until September 3, 2025 at the lobby of San Antonio Resort.
