Joey P. Mánlapaz

Philippine-born and Washington, DC-based artist Joey P. Mánlapaz came to the United States as a young teen. She earned her MFA in painting from The George Washington University where her ongoing fascination for and concentration on the city of Washington as subject matter were influenced by her mentor Frank Wright, a renowned painter of 18th-19th century architecture of downtown DC.

Mánlapaz exhibits extensively in the U.S. and continuously receives numerous accolades for her unique form of painterly photorealism, a result of a combined interest in the strict photorealist styles of New York artists Tom Blackwell and Richard Estes and the deep psychological sensibility of Edward Hopper. Her first museum exhibition “Through the Looking Glass” at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Spring 2009 featured her Reflections Series, highly complex paintings of reflections on glass storefront windows in DC. Since then, and as with her Hot Dog Vendor Series, she returns her attention to city sidewalks, painting on canvas the soon-to-be-obsolete newspaper stands that still dot city corners.

Several honors and awards for artistic merit include a coveted 2003 National Book Festival painting commission from the U.S. Library of Congress and First Lady Laura Bush. Her work was shown at the 2011 NY Affordable Art Fair, 2010 Miami Red Dot Art Fair and 2007 London Bridge Art Fair. Among collectors of her work include Akridge, Arnold & Porter LLP, Ayala Corporation, Bill Cosby, DC Commission on the Arts & Humanities, U.S. State Department and Wiley Rein & Fielding LLP.