Ryan Frigillana

Hi, friends. I’m thrilled to introduce my new artist book, PATMOS, produced as a limited-edition tabloid. Abstracting and collaging images from the last two US presidential elections with archival biblical illustrations, I tap into the angst of the current American political climate, magnifying both brazen and insidious forces. I’m relieved to finally get this out into the world. Thanks for supporting, looking, and sharing ❤️ Available on my website store. PATMOS Self-published: September 2025 Unbound tabloid, softcover 14.5 x 11.6 in. 80 pages, 40 double-page spreads 80 gsm bright recycled paper Four-color laser print Edition of 100 $40, + shipping to the US (email for international quote) The first 10 orders will come signed! ✨✨✨ “Around the 2020 and 2024 US presidential elections, I felt exhausted yet spellbound by the flood of media coverage. Compelled by a sense of dread and restlessness, I photographed the stream of images on my screen.   Emulating double-page spreads of a newspaper, television stills are collaged with 1950s biblical illustrations of the Apocalypse. Amplifying basic elements of mass media reproduction—LED pixels and halftone dots—I transform data through aggressive enlargement and physical manipulation during scanning. Signals become distorted, truth and meaning are stretched and skewed. The result is a fever dream evoking the religious fervor of politics, and reflecting an American landscape of paranoia, misinformation, injustice, and corruption.   In the Bible, Patmos is the island where John the Apostle was exiled and where he experienced his apocalyptic visions written in the Book of Revelation. I reimagine PATMOS as a space of contemporary reckoning—not of salvation, but of awakening—questioning the illusory notion of saviors. It is a place where spells cast are broken, and from the binary, new revelations emerge.”

A recently published review of my new book, PATMOS, is up on PhotoBook Journal—written by Gerhard Clausing. Thank you to Gerhard for your words and fresh perspective you’ve brought to my work. You can read the full review in my bio link. Copies are still available on my site!

Huge shoutout and thank you to @zerkalou for including me in this group exhibition, “Oracle in the Aperture” for @arcanitepictures at @lightworkorg . Happy to celebrate this hugely momentous day for Brian! Showing 3/20 — 5/22 Opening reception March 26, 5-7 pm 316 Waverly Avenue Syracuse, NY 13244

Print Benefit Artist Spotlight: Ryan Frigillana is an artist working with photography and lens-based media. Through books and installations, his work transcribes intergenerational experiences of grief, myth, and spirituality through a diasporic and allegorical lens. Drawing from his Adventist and acculturated upbringing, he transmutes elements of popular media, family histories, and biblical material to frame his photographs as equal parts evidence, faith, and prayer. Frigillana was born in Iligan City, Philippines, and immigrated with his family to Long Island, New York, where he continues to reside. He currently works on projects between Long Island and Southaven, Mississippi. DECEMBER 7 is the deadline to order your framed New South print in time for holiday delivery! Each frame is custom made to order from solid wood and non-glare glass. They are wired and ready to hang. Hit the link in bio to visit our online store and purchase your print today!

Happy to be a part of a new survey of photography across the American South that was recently published by @atlantacenterforphotography In conjunction with the book, ACP has released a select portfolio of limited edition prints including my image, “Fruits of Our Labor (2023)”, from my series, Manong. Prints are archival pigment 8x10” (paper size), edition of 15 with signed certificate of authenticity. Every purchase supports the artists and ACP exhibitions and programs. Link in bio.

Thank you to everyone who purchased a copy of my new book, PATMOS 💙. I’ll be sharing some BTS of the process behind sourcing, editing, and synthesizing this work. These images, sourced from Bible-story books of my childhood, instilled a sense of dread and doom into my young mind. I wanted to explore the darker side of these pictures and the way they functioned on a psychological level—to find ways to talk back to, reflect, and re-contextualize this fear in conversation with more contemporary imagery. With both illustrations and digital broadcasts, I used aggressive cropping and enlargement to obliterate as much information as I could. I wanted to reduce everything to raw bits and bytes and dots, and reassemble them into something new and primal. Into something…unsettling. This book of collages, to be viewed as singular images, speaks to the dangers of proclaimed “saviors”, spiritual or political, while holding an ugly mirror up to an increasingly heightened, violent, and imploding landscape.

Exchange (My American Flag), 2025, after Dorothea Lange’s “Filipinos cutting lettuce, Salinas, California, 1935”.

Grateful to share I’ve received a NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship in Photography. Thank you to @nyscouncilonthearts and to @nyfacurrent for your support of my work throughout the years. Happy to be among friends and fellow artists on this list whom I know and love. Congrats to all 🤎

A few installation photos of “What They Left Us”, which concluded last Saturday at The Alchemy of Art in Baltimore, MD. My gratitude to @divinagraciaphoto and @ciarrakwalters for your hard work, thoughtfulness, and care in curating and organizing this exhibition. This was my first time showing with fellow Filipinos! This experience has meant so much to me. Thank you to the brilliant artists I had the joy of being in community with, and to Baltimore for all the love. 🇵🇭❤️ •Installation photos by @vivianmariephoto •Slide 3: Words by @rejjiacamphor from the exhibition review, “Home is a Memory”. @baltimorebeat published July 15, 2025.

Puck Your (F)phonetics, 2022. 24 x 30 in. archival inkjet print. An older image from my series, Balikbayan. I associate the game of Scrabble to memories I have with my family growing up, specifically my late grandparents and my mom who all really loved the game. For us, it wasn’t just about enjoying family time together, it also became a fun way to help improve our English vocabulary after moving to the US. “That’s a word!” “Yes it is.” “I’ve heard it before.” “Well, look it up.” “What does it mean?” We’d sometimes play for hours in competitive sessions—notebooks fully scribbled out, and our fingers sticky from snacking on rambutan and sliced mango to fuel us. My mom, to my disagreement, would often triumph with all the medical terminology she threw down. In this recreation, I illustrate the experience of language displacement—gain and loss. I struggled to adapt to English at a young age, and while slowly finding my footing, over time I lost the ability (and the community) to converse in my native dialect of Ilocano. As the blank tiles suggest, this loss never held any “value” for me until much later in life when those pieces started to dwindle, and I began to truly feel the absence of those missing parts.

Baltimore, July 3rd! My first time showing with fellow Filipinx artists 🥹; this moment feels particularly special for me. Thank you to @divinagraciaphoto and @ciarrakwalters for putting this together. Honored and humbled to be in community with this group ❤️🇵🇭. Curated by Baltimore-based artists Anna Divinagracia and Ciarra K. Walters, “What They Left Us” features work by Filipino-American artists, Thea Canlas, Miguel Caba, Ashley Dequilla, Ryan Frigillana, Dhaynne Torres, Kat Navarro, along with the curators themselves. Engaging with inherited rituals, family archives, and everyday gestures of care, the featured artists consider how art becomes a means of holding onto, and reshaping what is passed down. Through their art practices, they examine the complex nature of identity, community, and presence as Filipino-Americans today. The exhibition runs from July 3rd to August 2, 2025 at The Alchemy of Art, and is made possible with support from Maryland State Arts Council, Towson University’s Asian Arts & Culture Center and Off the Rox. Opening reception: July 3 | 6 - 9 pm The Alchemy of Art | 1637 Eastern Ave, Baltimore, MD 21231 Attendance is free with RSVP. (Link in bio) Flyer design by @ciarrakwalters Photo credit: Ashley Dequilla, Ravelos (1951), 2024, Photo transfer on Birch Panel, 11x17

My book, “The Weight of Slumber”, is long sold out, but I still have a few limited edition risograph prints available from this series which you can purchase through my website. Sales provide critical support for future projects and publications. Thank you for supporting and/or sharing 🤍 Slide 1: An example presented in a walnut-stained maple wood frame and black window mat (not included). Photo courtesy of @toomanyphotosintheworld Edition of 10 Signed and numbered in verso Risograph-printed with black ink on Mohawk Eggshell White 80T Treated with a protective fixative spray Image size: 12 1/2 x 10 in. Paper size: 18 x 12 in. Each print is $30 with shipping to the US.