Ronald Ventura in New York

MANILA, Philippines - Ronald Ventura combines images and styles — ranging from hyperrealism to cartoons and graffiti — to create complex, multi-layered compositions that evoke a dystopic fantasy world in “A Thousand Islands,” which opens on Sept. 8 at Tyler Rollins Fine Art in New York.

One of the most highly acclaimed contemporary artists from the Philippines, Ventura has garnered enormous international attention in recent years and now ranks among the leading artists of his generation in Southeast Asia.

In 2008, his work was featured in a groundbreaking solo exhibition, “Mapping the Corporeal,” at the NUS Museum in Singapore. This was followed in 2009 by his first solo exhibition at Tyler Rollins Fine Art, “Metaphysics of Skin,” which marked his US debut.

Also that year, he presented a solo exhibition at the Akili Museum of Art in Jakarta and was a participant in the Prague Biennale. In 2010, he exhibited a large body of work as part of a two-man exhibition, “A Duad in Play,” at the Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore, and he was featured in the Nanjing Biennale as well as a solo exhibition in Italy.

Ventura’s work will be included in the exhibition “Surreal Versus Surrealism in Contemporary Art,” at the Institut Valencià d’Art Modern in Spain from Sept. 28 to Jan. 8, 2012.