Artist Registry
The White Columns Curated Artist Registry is an online platform for emerging and under-recognized artists to share images and information about their respective practices. The Registry seeks to create a context for artists who have yet to benefit from wider critical, curatorial or commercial support. To be eligible, artists cannot be affiliated with a commercial gallery in New York City.
To apply to the Registry, click here. Join our mailing list here to receive our open call announcement and other programming updates. For any further questions about the Registry, please contact us at registry@whitecolumns.org.
RESUME
Thea Canlas is a Filipina-American artist whose conceptual, research-driven work explores the entanglements of diasporic Philippine identity through sculptural objects, installations, and digital media. Her current body of work, Value Studies, traces how colonial economies and contemporary racial capitalism have impacted our perceptions of collective and individual human value.
Thea received her BFA in Fibers from the Maryland Institute College of Art and her MFA from Emily Carr University of Art and Design. As a Jacques and Natasha Gelman Travel Fellow, she researched Spanish colonial-era archives and textiles collections in Spain and the Philippines. She also spent a year studying indigenous textile weaving practices in the Philippines. This research led to inquiries into colonial economies and the Philippines’ history of labor migrations. Her work has been exhibited in Washington, DC, Houston, Vancouver, Glasgow, and Baltimore. Recently, Thea received a Ruby's Artist Grant and was selected as a semifinalist for the 2024 Janet and Walter Sondheim Art Prize. She was also chosen to be a part of the 2024 cohort at Skowhegan.
Thea lives in Baltimore, Maryland with her husband, David, and son, Isagani. She currently works as a studio artist and educator.