The hand-coloured, handcarved rubber of some kind of ancestral spirit morphed into Christ in Ay Apol! is like a piece of Filipino folk ‘thanka.’ The work references questions of religion, ethnicity and religion. Baguio-born-and-based artist Leonardo Aguinaldo, who specialises in Filipino folk art combining Pinoy and Igorot (northern Luzon hilly Cordilleras) cultures, is the author of the book, Ap-Apo niTuo (Ancestors of the People) in 1996, chronicling folk practices and oral tradition. The work was shown at the Ay Apo! Christ Is Good solo exhibition at Galleria Duemila SM Mega Mall, Mnaduluyog City in 2005. In a review for Asian Art News (Novemebr-December 2005), Alice G. Guillermo describes Ay Apol! as “an expression of despair and supplication or sheer exasperation, but in his (Aguinaldo)bright and colourful work, it achieves a level of insight and discovery, ironic, critical and comic by turns.” Aguinaldo is sometimes seen as a reincarnation of Santiago Bose for his artistic persuasions. He is best remembered as the Grand Prize winner of the Philip Morris Asean Art Award at its regional Bangkok finals in 2004. In 2003, he was one of the 13 artists honoured by the Cultural Centre of the Philippines. He also won a Special Prize in the Sea Art Festival installation contest at the Busan Biennale in 2002. He also took part in the 2013 Singapore Biennale. He was artist-in-residence at the Brent International School, Baguio City (2000) and the Vermont Studio Centre in Johnson, United States (2009). His first solos were in 1994 titled Ap-Aponituo and another, Inroads: Chronicles of a Traveller. Abroad, he took part in Vermont, Kongju City in South Korea (Songs of the People, 1996) and Utterly Art, Singapore (Northern Exposure, 2007).