Marika Callangan a.k.a. Woman Create: Creating A Woman
Within the sphere of “womanly” art, there are those that are direct and intentional, such as Marika Callangan, who also works under the name Woman Create.
Taking on the challenge of gendered power structures, she has been consistently pushing the limits of expression in both digital and traditional artmaking practices, through collages in particular. Informed by personal histories, her body of work utilizes the language of femininity towards creating dialogue, reimagining outcomes, and reclaiming narratives within female and throughout global spaces. Her trajectory so far has been successive efforts in breaking through barriers that limit (rather than define) the feminine in art and artmaking.
Working with material that largely involves “Barbie” material in a way pushes Callangan’s art into a Western lens or gaze. She has been collecting these dolls since childhood, and as an adult kept the boxes, packaging, and related materials such as magazines and catalogs. Created to reflect the “American Ideal” in terms of women’s appearances, the doll has shaped expectations of women’s bodies and life choices for women for decades.
Collage and Beads on Canvas (Box Type Wrap)
8” x 8” (inches)
Artist: Marika Callangan a.k.a. Woman Create
2026
A part of the series “All That Glitters” by Marika Callangan a.k.a. Woman Create
But through her art, there is a case to argue for innate Filipino-ness. Aside from art historian Patrick Flores’ treatise that “art simply needs to be made in the Philippines to become Philippine Art,” Filipino abstract traditions arise in these femmages. Having worked with Barbie-related material for several years already, every new piece is an exercise on pushing further, on deconstructing what she has done previously. From straightforward interventions in the way images are cut and dissected, more sublime compositions become visible, isolated sections echoing H.R. Ocampo’s process. This in a way pushes the work further into the realm of abstraction.
At the same time, horror vacui aesthetics continue to permeate, as she experiments with — in Barbie terms — “larger than life” gestures such as bead embellishments. perhaps meant to highlight what is beneath as much as it somehow obscures. Some would say this “fear of empty spaces” is the peak Filipino aesthetic.
Callangan’s collage practice is transformative in its continuity. Using a range of gestures ranging from immense to intimate, she allows playful interrogations and intimate obsessions to dissect notions of femininity and the female body towards a greater and sustained understanding of its power.
Written by Francisco Jin Sung Lee | Koki Lxx
Writer | Artist | Curator
