Marcel Antonio (born June 28, 1965) is a Filipino painter. Considered one of the most promising young talents in Philippine contemporary art while still attending the University of the Philippines' College of Fine Arts in the late 1980s, he launched a solo show and thereafter dropped out of the college to continue to produce collections of his distinctly narrative as well as pseudo-narrative figurative paintings influenced by modernism and 1980s postmodernism. Since then, Antonio produced enough sold-out works to be quickly counted as one of the Philippines' young painters most proficient in the magic realist sort of post-expressionism in the country. Since his dropping out of college to concentrate on a profitable, already-budding career, Antonio has to this day continued to be considered a prize of collectors in the Manila art market. This market following has in turn granted him mainstream gallery success through an unending series of sold-out exhibitions courtesy of his art dealers. Antonio's works involve a clear post-expressionism with mysterious themes, often utilizing fabular images that combine myth with reality, creating seeming stories behind his paintings that has continued to capture Manila's mainstream gallery-goers' attention with their deep sense of play. In his country, Antonio has exhibited in major galleries including Galleria Duemila, The Drawing Room, Gallery BIG, Galleria Quattrocento (his recurring mother gallery), and AltroMondo Arte Contemporanea, where his following has included local and international collectors. He has also exhibited in Berlin, Australia, and Singapore. Life and work Antonio is the son of Filipino painters Angelito Antonio and Norma Belleza and brother to painters Emil Antonio and Fatima Baquiran. While still a sophomore in the University of the Philippines College of Fine Arts, Antonio emerged as one of the school's "most promising" art students when he launched a solo exhibition. With that show, he was quickly catapulted into the Manila market and an inviting professional career in art, and Antonio had to deal with the pressures of his studies while being enthused by already-burgeoning requests coming from dealers. He chose to drop out and start an art career. By the time Antonio approached his forties in the late 1990s he had already gone through a number of transitions in search of a signature art, all within the terms of figuration, human figuration centrally. He has in his art quoted mannerisms from both of his parents' works. In an interview, Antonio intimated: "I remember the times when