Federico
Dominguez

Painter, illustrator, graphic designer, and musician Federico “BoyD” Sulapas Dominguez (b. 1954) was born in Maluko (now Manolo Fortich), Bukidnon and traces his ethnolinguistic roots to the Tagalogs of Bulacan, the Mandaya of Davao Oriental from his father’s side, and Surigao Del Norte from his mother’s side. 

At around the period when Martial Law was imposed from Manila in 1972, he was a young student taking up Practical Electricity in a vocational high school. He studied Architecture at the University of Mindanao and worked as a draftsman with the government organization Presidential Assistance on National Minorities (PANAMIN), visiting various indigenous communities as part of geodetic survey teams around the Philippines between 1976 to 1981. He started studying Fine Arts (major in Visual Communication) at the University of the Philippines College of Fine Arts in UP Diliman in 1986. Since the late 1970s, he has created many illustrations, posters, book covers, editorial publications, and paintings for various groups and non-government organizations and actively participated in the collective cultural work of artists organizations. 

Dr. Alice Guillermo first wrote about his works in Social Realism in the Philippines in the early 1980s, when Dominguez became acquainted with a restive artists community, joining the writers group Galian sa Arte at Tula (GAT) and and Tumbang Preso in the 1990s. He started exhibiting his works outside the Philippines, starting with the“Ethno-Expo” travelling exhibit across Europe from 1995 to 1997, and exhibits in the Netherlands, Australia, and France in 2001. In the early 2000s, Dominguez held a series of solo exhibits, titled “Illustration 1, 2, and 3” (respectively) from 2001-2003, capping it with the solo exhibit titled “Day”, in celebration of Indigenous People’s Month at the NCCA Gallery in Intramuros, Manila in 2010. He also contributed to works that featured the Social Realists in Philippine art, including Hardware 1 and Hardware 2 (UP Vargas Museum, 2001-2002), Tutok Perspektibo (UST Gallery, 2006), Pahina’t Kuadro: Alay para sa Manggagawa (Liongoren Gallery, 2007), Tutok Kargado (Ateneo Art Gallery, 2008),  and Kapital (UP Vargas Museum, 2010).

He was a fellow for the Asian Public Intellectual Fellowship Grant program in 2013-2014, and as such as able to do cultural research and travel around Southeast Asia, culminating in his research “Painting and Exhibit of Origin Talkes and Others: Folklore Reflecting Identity and Shared Heritage”. He is a member of the Concerned Artists of the Philippines (CAP) and the Asian People’s Music for Peace and Progress (AMP3). He is a resident of Krus na Ligas in the UP Diliman campus, where he lives with his spouse Maria Teresa Cheng, an anthropologist and Community Development worker, and their three children Rio, Montana, and Brisa. (LIT).