The playful, magical moments of childhood are fleeting but not with Shai Lirio’s portrayal. To gaze upon her paintings is to gaze upon a child’s dream frozen in time; whimsical, luminous, and enchanting, they take one’s soul to a world a child would want to get lost in. “If you see my works, they are like happy pieces, so I would say I really had a happy childhood.”
The doodles and drawings Lirio scribbled at four, which founded her current artistic style, adorn the walls and stairs of her ancestral home. As an only child, this was her way of entertaining herself and finding joy within the castle walls.
When not in her ancestral home, she plays at her “playground” after school—her mother’s office at a local handicraft company. Fossilized leaves, dried plants, and various types of wood and shells filled the eyes of little Shai Lirio every time she tagged along with her mom. This creative space that became part of her little world, surrounded by locals who are passionate about their craft, is where her zeal for art began burning.
“Ngayon, naiisip ko, hindi normal sa mga bata na makakita ng lahat ng types ng shell, ng mga locally made na materials, mga fossilized leaves na pang decor. Lately ko lang [nalaman] na siguro ‘yung love ko for arts, dun ko din nakuha kasi sanay ka sa gano’ng environment, so pag lumaki ka mas naappreciate mo siya [Right now, I think it’s not normal for children to be exposed to different types of shells, fossilized leaves decorations, and locally-made materials. It just dawned on me lately that perhaps, that kind of environment is what made me love and appreciate arts.],” she says.
But like a damsel in distress, Lirio’s journey is not without setbacks. As she navigated her way to adulthood, her passion for pursuing art was almost forgotten. She took the path towards commerce, earned her degree, and landed a job in the Business Process Outsourcing industry but there was never a time that she wasn’t nudged by her young love. In 2018, from being a corporate employee and hobbyist artist, she turned art into a full-time venture.
She continues her little adventures from childhood by experimenting with art styles such as fauvism and abstraction, treating the canvas as a playground for grown-ups. A firm believer that trying out different things leads to finding happiness, she advises fellow artists to explore and not just stick with one artistic style to find what they truly enjoy doing.
In her full-time career, a single day does not pass without Lirio working on and completing two artworks. A hidden fount of ideas resides in the deep recesses of her mind, fueled by her creative upbringing. In her dictionary, the term “art block” simply does not exist.
She admires the life and works of Vincent van Gogh and gets inspiration from Filipino visual artists Ang Kiukok and BenCab, and Filipino-American artist Pacita Abad.
Captivating and ethereal, Lirio’s artwork offers a timeless glimpse into her childhood imagination and the world she experienced, evoking a sense of sweet nostalgia. It’s a tapestry of her dreams—both real and distant—and a mosaic of individuals who inspired her to keep her childlike wonder as time passed.
She approaches the canvas with the same joy and curiosity she felt as a young girl exploring the corners of her ancestral home. By immortalizing the pure and innocent memories of her childhood, she reconnects those who view her art with their own experiences and, even better, allows them to heal their inner child.
In hopes of keeping alive the magic of boyhood and girlhood in the coming generations, Lirio established her studio, Palette Paradise, in 2023, where she conducts art classes for young artists aged 3 to 10. “[The] palette is where you mix all your paints, explore, and experiment so I feel like anywhere you can be creative with colors is a paradise.”
“Whatever you decide to do, it needs to come from a passionate place. You need to be obsessed or so in love with your art because if you do get a lot of success, that means you need to do it more and more… [and the mere passion that you thought] eventually becomes your job and a bit of that love is gonna go away so you need to have a ton of that love upfront,” she says.
Lirio’s artworks have reached many art enthusiasts across and beyond the country and have been displayed in numerous local art displays; three being at the Gallery BiG, Shangri-La Plaza where her works have appeared annually since 2022.
Her name is listed among those of this generation who continually transform the Filipino experience through art that transcends time, beauty, and memory.