Arnel Borja

Arnel Borja (b.1963) has always been a late bloomer in life. His graduation from college was delayed by ten years at the Philippine Air Transport and Training Services (PATTS) College of Aeronautics, where he got a degree in Aeronautical Engineering on Air Transport Management Services. He taught later in life at the Philippine School of Interior Design (PSID), where he designed a course on advanced drawing, of which only half of the curriculum is taught to this day. He was already a realist painter before shifting to being a kinetic sculptor, and he had his first one-man sculpture exhibition at 38 years old. His maternal grandfather, a Magbanua, was an anluwagi to Don Claudio Abello Montilla, who was a mayor and haciendero in Negros Occidental before and after World War II. An anluwagi is a bygone craftsman from the Spanish period who was a master carpenter, blacksmith, masonry, and stone carver all in one.