Noel Ed De Leon, Kulay Labitigan, Lawrence Carlos, Kilapsaw: Everything Must Go, live performance, Regent Street, London, 2016. Photo by Eva Bentcheva
Filipino-British artist Noel Ed De Leon (b.1976, Philippines) holds a degree in architecture (1998) and has been working between Manila and London. His interests span archiving as artistic practice, installation, multimedia sculpture, art made with readymade and found objects and live performance art. Much of Noel’s work deals and explore with the themes of memory, DNA, remembrance and mapping traces of history through material objects. An avid collector of memorabilia and original artefacts from the First and Second World War, Noel frequently incorporates these artefacts into his installations and performances which explore how memories are kept alive in the social fabric, as well as erased through changing political, religious and social developments.
Noel’s first solo exhibition took place at Brentford Middlesex in 2011 titled ’Life As I Know It’. In 2012, David Medalla, one of the pioneers of kinetic art and performance art, invited Noel to participate in the London Biennale, staging a live performance art on Trafalgar Square outside the National Gallery London. Noel and David performed and held a silent action protest in front of the BBC building in Great Portland Street London (2013).
Since then, Noel has exhibited as part of the London Biennale holding a major solo show in 2014 at the Philippine Embassy of London titled ‘Tokens Of A Time Gone By: Reanimating History as Art in the Work of Noel Ed De Leon’ curated by Eva Bentcheva that displays a broad selection of Noel’s art, as well as the international premier of his performance ‘Tracing the Traces’. He also participated on the Expo Mail- Art Manifesto Brut & Acrodacrolivres (2014) held in Belgium.
Noel co-founded ‘Batubalani Art Projects’ in 2015 and partake on its collaborative projects such as: ‘It’s About Time’ (2015), ‘Kilapsaw: Everything Must Go’(2016) and ‘Corpografias’(2016).
Recently, Noel was invited by Adam Nankervis (Museum Man- Berlin) to participate in an exhibition titled ‘Should The World Break In II’ as part of ‘Autogestión’ at Foundació Joan Miró Barcelona Spain. Noel is currently working as an independent artist alongside co-directing Batubalani Art Projects.
M.A.P. 