Body Parts
Pete Jimenez
2-28 July 2011
Mag:net Gallery Katipunan

Pete Jimenez is among the few Filipino sculptors who have consistently explored the qualities of scrap metal as a medium, transforming rusty and discarded shards from junk shops into visual puns and garage-produced gems. Read More »

Philippine Daily Inquirer
Lifestyle Section
Monday, July 24, 200
By Constantino C. Tejero

Mostly these are slender elegant shapes perfectly poised in the air

One of the most ingenious artists hereabout is Pete Jimenez. A champion of direct sculpture inspired by Julio Gonzalez and Picasso in their expressive use of iron as medium, he has been fashioning steel discards into graceful forms that work as visual puns. This artist has a rich lode of creativity, energy and inspiration. Only three months since his previous exhibit and he was already presenting his latest output in “Bakal,” recently in Mag:net Gallery at Agcor Building, 335 Katipunan Ave., Loyola Heights, Quezon City. The prodigious energy can be gleaned from how much Jimenez wields his art in various mediums and excels in each. He is, in fact, not only a sculptor but a multimedia artist. An alumnus of the UP Artists’ Circle, he was a regional finalist in the 1998 Art Association of the Philippines National Centennial Painting Competition. He is also an award-winning TV commercial animation director and graphics designer, garnering the Best in Art Direction and Best in Animation awards for some of his projects at the 17^th Philippine Advertising Congress. Read More »

West Gallery, SM Megamall
February 9 to 21, 2006

Pete Jimenez, who has always found time to go hunting for junk steel in junk shops and mold them into pieces of fine art, lets us in on what it is like to be right where his workshop is in My Garage, his newest one-man exhibit at the West Gallery, SM Megamall. My Garage formally opens on February 9 and will run until February 21. Read More »

Pete Jimenez always finds the little gems hidden in junk shops around Metro Manila.  What most of us see as useless, become treasures in waiting.  They just need to be in the good hands of an artist like Jimenez.

In If the Shoe Fits, Jimenez shows us that his favorite weapon of choice — that is scrap iron, can be combined with wooden shoe lasts and have second lives as interesting art pieces.  The exhibit runs at The Water Dragon Gallery at the 2^nd Floor of the Yuchengco Museum from May 28 to June 20, 2009. Read More »

by: Alya B. Honasan

Philippine Daily Inquirer
Sunday Inquirer Magazine
October 22, 2006

Sculptor Pete Jimenez’s medium may be heavy, but his message is anything but.

Ongoing until Oct. 31 at the Mag:net Gallery Paseo in Makati is sculptor Pete Jimenez’s third one-man show this year and his 10th since 2000, “Scrapyard,” where he showcases some 21 pieces of iron works made from his junkyard finds. That’s a lot of excursions to the junkyard in Antipolo and Fairview, where Jimenez heads on weekends to find the inspirations for his “direct sculpture,” the raw material he buys by the kilo. Read More »

By: Helen Yu-Rivera

Business Mirror
October 1, 2008

How is an everyday object transformed into a work of art? An object may gain status through time in the same way that wisdom is often ascribed to age. A modest table or chair can turn into fine antique in many years. But not all objects are privileged to acquire such status. A rusty nail, spring or scrap metal, for instance, will never become priceless antiques and do not command center stage in the drama of everyday life. While many recognize these objects’ importance in the assembly line, they are merely part of something larger and are discarded once their usefulness expires. Pete Jimenez’s sculptures afford these seemingly insignificant objects the chance to undergo a transfiguration. From their humble origins in junkyards, they are given new lease in life and elevated into the status of “art.” These found objects are given formal coherence, expressive character and embodied with a “concept” in the hands of this talented artist. Read More »

By: Alya B. Honasan

Philippine Daily Inquirer
September 15, 2008
Lifestyle Section

Pete Jimenez’s scrap metal sculptures are shot through with energy and wit-maybe because he has such a great time making them.

“It looked like an insect,” says Federico “Pete” Jimenez. “I still remember.” The artist is talking about the very first metal sculpture he ever made from found objects, an “experimental” assignment for his class with National Artist Napoleon Abueva, at the University of the Philippines College of fine Arts, where he graduated in 1982 as a Visual Communications major. Then Jimenez pulls out a pen and begins to draw the work from memory on a paper napkin, an assemblage of metal gears, with one jagged ring cut in two to make curving antennae for a round head. So where is the historic piece now? “I can’t find it,” he says, with a bemused shrug. “I think my father sold it for scrap.” It’s just the kind of matter-of-fact reality check that keeps the talented Jimenez terribly grounded. “I don’t think I have any angst,” he says with a chuckle. “Well, maybe I have some inside me, but it’s definitely not the dark kind.” There’s the fact that the scrap-metal vendors who know him very well as a regular suki can’t figure out why he wants ugly stuff instead of shiny new metal. Youngest daughter Julia, 8, once described her father’s work as mainly “ayun, pukpok-pukpok, pako-pako” (hammer-hammer, nail-nail). Then there’s also the fact that, as manager of the post production house Optima, Jimenez has a day job that’s filled with stress, deadlines, and a lot of the self-depreciating humor that you’d expect from folks in the advertising industry. (His colleagues like to call him bakal boy.) Read More »