Lani Maestro received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of the Philippines Diliman in 1977. She later relocated to Canada in 1982 for an extended residency at the Banff Centre, Alberta. She obtained her Masters in Fine Art at the Nova Scotia College of Art & Design in 1988, and was a recipient of an honorary doctorate from the same institution in 2018.
L. Maestro’s multimedia and installation work encompassing text, sound and video are poetic renderings and tender responses to sites and their histories. She has described her work as an “architecture of the body” to emphasise experiences as passage, a fluid traversing of space and time as a means to resist authority and binary oppositions.

Present throughout L. Maestro’s practice is a thorough and embodied engagement with political realities, critical theory and spatiality. Through an acute consideration of the materiality of both site and object, her work speaks to ideas around memory, violence and language. Often taking a restrained approach to artmaking – through carefully crafted pieces of text as video or neon installations in No Pain Like This Body (2010), delicate structures made from textiles in Cradle (1996) or pages in a book in a book thick of ocean (1993) – her works subtly yet pointedly weave together several shared and personal narratives, creating a body of work that transverses the Philippine art historical dichotomy of social realism and conceptualism.

While in Canada, her work first gained critical international recognition through the Biennial Prize at the 2nd Havana Biennal (1985). Since then, her work has been included at major international exhibitions such as the Singapore Biennale (2019); Venice Biennale (2017); Sharjah Biennale (2009); Busan Biennale (2004); and the Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (1999), amongst many others. She has also been commissioned for public interventions by the Vancouver Art Gallery (2022); Regional Nature Parks of Lorraine, France (2014); and Goodwater Gallery, Toronto (2002).

Alongside her artistic practice, L. Maestro co-founded and edited Harbour Magazine of Art and Everyday Life (1990–1994), a publication featuring the work of artists, writers and theorists. Since the early 1990s, she has also co-directed Gallery Burning, an itinerant art space, and Burning Editions, an art book publishing project. She has held teaching positions at the University of Lethbridge, Alberta (2007–2009), Nova Scotia College of Art & Design, Halifax (2002–2004), and Concordia University, Montréal (1990–2000).

L. Maestro’s work has received critical recognition and grants from the Hnatyshyn Foundation Visual Arts Awards; the Award for Outstanding Achievement by a Canadian Artist, Canada (2012); Canada Council Awards (1990–2017); a residency at the Banff Centre, Alberta (1982–1984); Biennial Prize, Havana Biennial, Cuba (1985); and Thirteen Artists Award, Cultural Center of the Philippines (1977).