This is part of MCAD Commons, an exhibition project which offers the singular programming of the Museum of Contemporary Art and Design (MCAD) of the De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde (DLS-CSB) to a larger audience. It fosters creative development, ideas exchange, and curatorial discourse.
After studying in Manila, Elisa Tan spent a decade in the US and Europe, where she became a respected figure in the arts scene. Her early efforts as a painter of large-scale canvases garnered significant recognition in the mid to late 1970s.
When she moved to Paris in the 1980s, her intellectual efforts to merge word, image, and the everyday finally began to reach their most sustained following.
Her envelope series, expressed in her symbology, is a sequence of ever deeper meditations on what she calls ‘containers for thought.’ Within that framework, she creates space for color, abstraction, the concrete, accident, and the deceptive power of the small scale.
A spiritual crisis led her to stop creating public art. She later converted to Christianity and lived a private life in Baguio, where she passed on. Her work has been archived by her estate.
Elisa Tan: Container of Distance presents the archive of her body of work and a poetic constellation of her ideas.
In connection with this exhibition, there will be talks which focus on scholar-curator Dr. Maria Cristina Juan and professorial lecturer Dr. Flaudette May Datuin. They will conduct conversations to expound on the late artist’s works and creative process. It will be held on Saturday, October 11 at 3 pm.
The Elisa Tan: Container of Distance exhibition is free and available for public viewing from October 10 to November 16, 2025. It is open from Tuesdays to Sundays, from 10 am to 6 pm, except holidays.
Both the display and the discussion will be conducted at the Space63, Comuna, 238 Pablo Ocampo Sr. Extension, Makati City.