Filipino American artists take the spotlight in Baltimore after Thea Canlas wins the Sondheim Art Prize

The Baltimore Banner profiled Filipino American artists Thea Canlas, Anna Divinagracia and Mark Kent Navarro, after Canlas won the $30,000 Janet and Walter Sondheim Art Prize at the Walters Art Museum in August.

Filipino American artists are drawing new recognition in Baltimore's arts scene, The Baltimore Banner reported on 26 October, during Filipino American History Month. The paper profiled three artists whose work explores Filipino American identity, assimilation and perseverance.

"It's an incredibly exciting moment for any historically underrecognized group to be recognized in these institutional spaces and also so supported by their local communities," said Dylan K. Hill, a contemporary art curator at the Baltimore Museum of Art.

Thea Canlas

Canlas won the 21st Janet and Walter Sondheim Art Prize and $30,000 at the Walters Art Museum in August, Baltimore Fishbowl reported. The prize is presented by Create Baltimore with the Walters and is one of the top awards for visual artists in the region. Canlas, a Maryland Institute College of Art graduate, was a semifinalist for the prize in 2024.

Her ongoing series "Value Studies" reimagines items such as overseas Filipino workers' uniforms and flags made from Filipino textiles to explore the effects of colonialism and global capitalism on the Philippines. She told The Banner that next year will focus on a Baltimore exhibition planned for 2028, with plans to visit the Philippines to buy materials and learn basket weaving.

Anna Divinagracia

Divinagracia, who moved to Baltimore from Davao City at age 12, was a semifinalist for this year's Sondheim prize. Her sculptural works use materials such as wood, photographs of Baltimore and the Philippines, and documents from the green card process. One piece, "A Game of Dreams", reimagines the Filipino game pabitin. Some of her work is on show in "A Case for the Muse", a group exhibition at the Compound in East Baltimore, through 30 October.

Mark Kent Navarro

Composer and musician Navarro has been a finalist for the Baker Artist Awards in 2023, 2025 and 2026. For his new album "Long Live", he recorded sounds on each Baltimore street where he once lived and played every instrument himself. He is planning a listening party this winter ahead of the album's release in January.

The Banner also noted indie-pop musician Ralph Bernabe, who performs as Plant Dad, and theatre artist and mask maker Tara Cariaso.

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