Celso Duazo Pepito has spent more than five decades rendering the Filipino experience into images of lasting humanity. Trained under the celebrated Martino Abellana at the University of the Philippines Cebu, he began his practice in the Impressionist-Realist tradition before evolving toward Cubism — a shift that brought greater structural tension and emotional charge to his deeply personal subjects.
Inspired by Vicente Manansala's social realism and Picasso's formal daring, Pepito forged his own visual language — one that speaks of family devotion, spiritual resilience, communal labor, and the quiet dignity of ordinary Filipino life. Working across painting, sculpture, and mixed media, his art functions as both intimate document and cultural testimony.
His work has been exhibited across Asia, the Americas, and Europe — in Singapore, Korea, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Peru, Luxembourg, and New York. He is a founding member of Cebu Artists Incorporated, Kolor Sugbo, and Ugnayang Filipino Arts Foundation, and a recipient of the Tatak UP Award, the Outstanding Individual Award in Visual Arts, and Sugbuanong Bahandi. He remains an active mentor, shaping the next generation of Cebuano painters.
