Glass sculptor Anna Orlina has stepped out of the shadow of her famous father, Ramon Orlina, to present her highly anticipated first solo exhibition, “Reflections of Being.”
Running from September 18 to October 11, 2026, at Galerie Stephanie in Shangri-La Plaza, Mandaluyong City, the show marks a significant milestone in her decade-long journey of working with glass.
While Anna spent years honing her foundational techniques by observing her pioneering father and studying at institutions such as the Pilchuck Glass School, “Reflections of Being” represents the crystallization of her own distinct artistic voice.
Unlike the more traditional geometric focus associated with the older generation, her solo work features vibrant color pairings, energetic forms and a playful use of light. For her debut, she spent five to six months focused on creating a deliberate 10-piece collection rather than following her usual routine of participating in group exhibitions.
The exhibition offers an intimate journey into Anna Orlina’s multicultural identity, femininity and family bonds.
Her Filipino-Malaysian heritage is reflected in the vibrant palette of the 10 works, drawing heavily from her experience growing up in a multicultural household.
Several pieces are inspired by her young nieces, Mari and Kira. She translated their bright personalities into playful forms, creating a delicate glass butterfly for Mari and a radiant star structure for Kira.
Her creative process combines meticulous cutting, laminating, coldworking, grinding and polishing. Demonstrating her interest in innovation and sustainability, she also upcycled waste glass into some of the new luminous forms.
Family, faith, femininity, cultural and ethnic lineage, and selfhood are among Anna’s abiding subjects in this exhibition. From these thematic explorations emerge works that are distinctly hers: playful and lucent in design, yet revealing a contemplative core drawn from her experiences as a young woman and daughter and as an inheritor of the Orlina glass legacy.
Glass, with its sensitivity to light and shadow, texture and movement, allows her work to take on a range of interactive and optical dimensions while maintaining a strong sense of form. These qualities also offer a tactile kind of play.
She likens the process of constructing her glass art, which involves cutting, grinding, polishing, laminating and upcycling scraps into something new, to the modular, hands-on spontaneity of assembling LEGO bricks.
Email: rogelio.medina@
About the Columnist
Rogelio Constantino Medina
Associate Professor III Rogelio Constantino Medina is an award-winning Filipino international journalist, columnist and academic. He is well regarded for his extensive contributions to Philippine media and major international news publications. His career spans several decades and covers a wide range of fields, including news, business, travel, lifestyle, science, sports and health. He has written for major international publications such as the Far Eastern Economic Review in Hong Kong, The Japan Times in Tokyo and Gulf News in Dubai. Notably, he made history as the first Filipino journalist to interview Japan’s first astronaut, Dr. Mamoru Mohri. He is also credentialed with the U.S. Department of State’s Foreign Press Centers in New York City and Washington, D.C.
