It has been fifty years since her first solo painting exhibition at Kalinangan ng Lahi Gallery in Quezon City in 1974. The timing, though unintentional, reflects the ebbs and flows of time in Philippine history and Brenda V. Fajardo’s practice. Her prints from the 1970s have strong linear qualities and intricate movements. At the time, there was limited access to presses and planning was important in creating editions. Yet, it was also a more affordable medium for experimentation. The decade was turbulent, as the country was trapped in a dictatorship with critical creative practice threatened. It was also a decade when women in the arts became a focal point of feminist discourse, particularly after Linda Nochlin’s Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists? essay was published. Locally, Filipino women artists, including Brenda V. Fajardo, engaged in printmaking, creating a burgeoning feminist artistic moment from the 1970s to the 1980s. She, alongside Imelda Cajipe Endaya, Ida Bugayong, Julie Lluch, and Anna Fer eventually founded KASIBULAN in 1987.

Baraha ng Buhay Pilipino (Playing Cards of Filipino Life) or her Tarot Series is her most well-known work. She engaged with a post-colonial perspective, looking into untangling Filipino identity from the trappings of the colonial narrative. Strong female imagery outside of the traditional meek representations is seen in the early prints and will continue through the decades. The paintings from the 1990s expand on the narrative, looking into everyday life and demanding strength, at the same time heart, in engaging women’s experiences and struggles. Reimagining the Babaylan (Shaman) and Gaga (Fool) among many other symbols became emblematic of Brenda V. Fajardo’s art practice.