A solo thesis exhibition by Negrense visual artist John Mitchell “JM” Valenciano titled “Ginhalinan” opened at The Negros Museum on May 9 and will run until July 9.
Gin-Halinan takes its title from the Hiligaynon word halin – to come from, to originate, and, in another sense, to leave. It unfolds as a meditation on beginnings and departures, on movement, memory, and what endures after one has gone.
Rooted in the sugarcane landscapes of Negros, the exhibition reimagines land as a living archive inscribed by labor, inheritance, displacement, and fragile forms of belonging. Emerging from a thesis in papermaking and printmaking, it transforms discarded sugarcane leaves into handmade paper, where material becomes metaphor: fibers bear the quiet residues of work and weather, while textures hold the imprint of place. Layered prints surface as fragments such as shards of land, gestures of memory, and echoes of generational lives bound to the fields.
At its core, Gin-Halinan traces the entanglement of personal memory and collective remembrance through the lived experiences and voices of workers, families, and communities shaped by both the bounty and burden of the plantation. It asks, with quiet insistence: What do we inherit from the land, and what does it remember of us?
Here, paper becomes a vessel of memory; print, an act of holding, of making visible what persists, even in departure.
Valenciano is from Victorias City, Negros Occidental. He is the son of visual artist Dennis Valenciano. He comes from a lineage of respected artists, including Romeliz Valenciano and Benjamin Valenciano, one of the artists who completed the Angry Christ Church’s sculptures. Family ties and a sense of rootedness in his hometown greatly influenced JM’s passion for the arts.
JM completed his early education at Don Bosco Technical Institute-Victorias and later graduated from the University of St. La Salle. He is pursuing a degree in CFA-Studio Arts at the University of the Philippines-Cebu, further honing his skills and expanding his artistic horizons.
He became an active member of collectives such as KANVAS and AAB-N, providing him a platform to collaborate with other artists and showcase his work. He is now an active member of Grupo Balhag, a collective of Negrosanon printmakers formed in 2022.
Over the years, JM has actively participated in several exhibitions, including Artshow Philippines Online (Manila), Art in the Park (Orange Project), Art Tienda, Jose Joya Gallery (Cebu), White Space Gallery (Bacolod), and Negros Museum. This May, he is set to participate in a print exhibition at Gravity Art Space (Manila) and a collective exhibition in Rizal Public Museum Library (Cebu), promising more exciting projects in the future.
JM’s talent has been acknowledged through various distinctions. Notably, he was the 2nd Runner-up in the VMC Painting Contest in the year 2012. His work also caught the attention of the online magazine Roots and Wings Filipino Online Magazine in Europe, where he was featured in the Independence Day issue. Recently, he was also one of the finalists in the 48th National Artist Jose T. Joya Awards in 2024.*
