Dexter Sy graduated with a degree in Fine Arts major in Advertising from Far Eastern University, where he currently teaches as a special lecturer. He held his first solo show titled Sanctus at Big & Small Art Co. in 2008. Consistently earning distinctions in the Philip Morris Philippine Art Awards, he bagged the Jurors’ Choice for Excellence in 2010 and 2012, and the Grand Prize in 2016. He was an artist-in-residence of the Haslla International Open Air Museum Residency in Korea in 2011, 2012, and 2015.
He works mostly in two-dimensional media, often combining painting with pen and ink drawing. Figures painstakingly rendered and stylized with minute details such as lines, shapes, textures and patterns are layered and juxtaposed against a flat background. He has appropriated forms, symbols and icons across a variety of sources, which include contemporary popular culture, Philippine folk mythology, and religious traditions. Some of the recurring themes he has explored in his art are kinship and social ties, human nature and values, identity, and personal memories