XiamaraCelestial

Artist's journalManila / Portfolio 01

Xiamara holding a paint palette and brush.

Portfolio No. 01 Artist's journal

XiamaraCelestial.

Artist in formation.
Architect in becoming.

I work across paint, paper, clay, pencil, and small-scale worlds. I’m still learning, and I want the evidence of making to remain visible.

Enter the archive
Xiamara in her studioManila, Philippines
In the studio
Mixed media / memory made material✦ Architecture / learning through scale✦ Sketchbook / observation in progress✦ Clay / decisions made by hand✦

01 / Selected work

Three works,
held close.

Each material leaves a different kind of evidence: touch, revision, texture, and time.

02 / Material + process

What words
cannot hold.

Ideas move between image, object, and surface. The medium is not a finish; it is part of the thought.

Framed acrylic painting of small pale figures moving across a dark background.

Acrylic / 2025

To Be Held, Then Let Go

A study in holding on, letting go, and the traces that remain between both gestures.

03 / Architecture in becoming

Observation / Scale / Iteration

Making space
small enough to study.

I’m beginning to understand architecture through observation, scale, material, model-making, iteration, and the human experience of space.

Front view of a white and timber house scale model with lawn and small figures.
Scale Model / 2023Enter the architecture desk
01Sketchbook image 18Watercolor and graphite on paper 02Sketchbook image 19Graphite on paper

04 / Sketchbook

Studies, fragments,
returns.

The page is where looking becomes practice—unfinished, immediate, and alive.

Graphite study of a classical sculpted head on white paper. 01Sketchbook image 02 Ink line drawing of musicians, instruments, and dogs across a sketchbook page. 02Sketchbook image 07 Ink sketchbook page with cat, character, lettering, and object studies. 03Sketchbook image 11 Pencil portrait studies of two women and one man. 04Sketchbook image 15
Open the sketchbook
Xiamara holding a paint palette and brush.

05 / About the artist

Not finished.
Seen clearly.

I’m Xiamara, a young Filipino artist beginning the path toward architecture.

Across mixed media, acrylic, sketching, clay, sculpture, and dioramas, I observe, experiment, revise, and become.

Read the artist’s note

Say hello / Manila

If something here
stays with you,
write to me.

Artwork inquiries, thoughtful notes, and conversations about making are welcome.

Start a conversation