Rey Paz Contreras

Rey Paz Contreras (August 31, 1950-March 23, 2021) is a prominent Filipino sculptor working with urban refuse and environmental materials as artistic media.

[1] Rey Paz Contreras was born in Parañaque, south of Manila, and grew up in a house by the railway tracks in the crowded urban district of Tayuman.

Aside from the travieza, he explored using logging refuse (roots and branches) in order to pave way for reforestation efforts and to help organize backyard industry to onion farmers who supplied and eventually were trained to use the hardwood refuse salvaged from the river as art material.

This rejection of the western cultural hegemony as form of anti-colonial, anti-fascist sentiment was part of the broader Social Realism art movement in the Philippines and is a central part of the continuing recognition of the importance of the Social Realist movement.

He has conducted sculptural training workshop in the regions and has been invited to exhibit in Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, Canada, Cuba, Brazil, Australia and the United States.

Sculpture of mother and child by Contreras made from discarded century-old molave hardwood, texturized stainless steel and other materials indigenous to the Philippines