Artist Erzil Morales on Abstraction, Imagination, and “Where the Line Begins” at ManilART 2026

For abstract artist Erzil Morales, a line is never simply a line. “It is where every possibility begins,” she says—a seemingly simple mark that, once set in motion across a canvas, can become a path, a connection, a boundary, or the beginning of a story.

It is an idea that feels particularly at home with this year’s ManilART theme, Where The Line Begins, which looks at the humble line as the starting point of creative expression.

For Erzil, however, that starting point reaches much further back. Her relationship with art began when she was young, when clouds could become elephants, princesses, dragons, or entire imagined worlds. Art classes gave her a way to bring those visions to life. She eventually studied accountancy and built a corporate career, but painting remained her first love—the space where, as she puts it, she feels “most free and most like myself.”

That duality—between discipline and freedom—has become an important part of her artistic language.

Erzil’s work brings together structure and spontaneity: layers of acrylic, visible brushstrokes, blocks of color, geometric forms, and dark lines that wander, overlap, and connect. She often combines geometric shapes with more fluid movement, allowing the disciplined side of her personality to meet a freer, more instinctive way of creating. Her palette moves through warm ochres, earthy tones, soft neutrals, deep blues, teal, red, cream, and charcoal, with color carrying much of the emotional weight of the work.

It is a visual language shaped not only in the studio, but also by the life she lived before returning fully to painting.

Her years in accountancy and corporate environments taught her discipline, patience, precision, and an attention to detail. Working in both local and international settings exposed her to different people, cultures, and perspectives, expanding the way she sees the world. Returning to painting became another significant turning point. Over the past decade, she has studied under several artists, deepening her understanding of technique, color, form, and composition.

Along the way, she also learned to let go of the need for perfection.

“I used to feel that everything had to be perfect,” Erzil shares. Over time, she came to appreciate imperfections for what they reveal: movement, honesty, and the presence of the human hand.

That balance between control and surrender is evident in the way she paints.

A new work may begin with a color palette, a feeling, a memory, or simply a shade that stays in her mind. She prepares her colors carefully, rarely using paint directly from the tube, mixing and adjusting until the color feels right. But once the first mark is made, the process becomes more intuitive. One line responds to another; colors, textures, and spaces begin to interact; and sometimes the painting leads her somewhere entirely different from where she initially imagined.

She has learned to trust those unexpected turns.

That openness is also at the heart of why Erzil is drawn to abstraction.

For her, painting offers a way to express feelings that may be too personal, layered, or complicated to translate literally. Color, movement, texture, and form become another vocabulary—one that can hold emotions without having to define them.

Just as importantly, abstraction leaves room for the viewer.

Morales may begin a painting with her own story, but she does not want that story to dictate what another person sees. Instead, she invites viewers to bring their own memories, emotions, and imagination into the work.

That openness extends to the emotions she hopes her paintings evoke. Before trying to understand a work, she hopes viewers simply pause and feel something—perhaps joy, calmness, energy, curiosity, hope, or a memory they cannot immediately explain. When someone tells her that one of her paintings reminded them of something personal, she considers that especially meaningful.

Her paintings are often informed by imagination, curiosity, relationships, healing, growth, and hope. 

“Memories of places, conversations, people, or quiet moments can find their way into the work, even if they are not represented literally,” she shares.

“I am also fascinated by pathways and connections—the directions we choose, the boundaries we cross, and the people we meet along the way. These experiences often appear through intersecting lines, layered forms, and spaces that seem to open or move.”

At ManilART 2026, Erzil will present her IMAGINE series with La Galeria De Maria, a body of work that brings her artistic philosophy into direct conversation with the fair’s theme, Where The Line Begins.

The series returns to what Erzil describes as a place within ourselves “where imagination has no boundaries,” where a simple line or shape can become anything. Its works bring together layered colors, visible gestures, geometric forms, and flowing lines, exploring once again the relationship between structure and freedom.

There is something fitting about that premise for an artist whose own journey has moved between two seemingly different worlds.

Accountancy gave Morales a respect for order and precision. Painting taught her the beauty of releasing control. Her practice now exists somewhere between the two: carefully considered, but open to discovery; structured, but never completely predetermined.

Her influences are similarly expansive. She finds inspiration in architecture and interiors, music, nature, travel, different cultures, conversations, and the lines and movements of the city around her. 

“Sometimes it begins with something very simple—a shadow, a road, the shape of a cloud, or an unexpected combination of colors,” she says.

Perhaps this is why the line holds such significance in her work. It is both an element of composition and a metaphor for possibility—a starting point that does not necessarily dictate where the journey ends.

Over the years, Morales has come to understand that becoming an artist is about more than technical skill or creating something beautiful. It requires patience, honesty, consistency, courage, and an openness to change. She has also learned that not every line needs to be perfect to carry meaning.

“Sometimes the imperfect marks feel more alive because they show the presence of the artist,” she says.

It is a philosophy that gives her work its particular sense of movement and humanity.

And when visitors encounter IMAGINE at ManilART, Morales hopes they will take away something that goes beyond the visual details of the paintings.

She hopes they remember how the work made them feel. Perhaps they leave with curiosity, joy, hope, or a renewed sense of possibility. Most of all, she hopes the paintings remind them that imagination has no limits.

“Every artwork may begin with my own experience, but once someone connects with it, it becomes part of their story too,” she says. “That is why I believe it is more than a painting, it is a story we can share.”