For artist Alvin Villaruel, celestial images have become very interesting painting subjects. These are what he uses as the “Reference Point” in his latest one-man show at the West Gallery in SM Megamall, which runs from May 19 to June 1.
Villaruel maps out his visual framework, “The Pattern of the constellations, the motion of stars captured in photographs, and still so many possibilities [drawn] when manipulated digitally…possibilities that can be quite suitable for abstract imagery.”
He adds in his statement how we have always looked up for answers: “We have always regarded stars and constellation as beacons,[or] reference points laid across the night sky, with practical and ideological applications thoughout history.”
Villaruel explores this vast, seemingly boundless universe through night photography, digital enhancement, and other modern scientific equipment, like telescopes. He says that these are the tools that he uses regularly to depict nature, albeit through abstract and even random fashions. “Photography widens our scope of nature,: as it has proven its capability in the realm of visual imagery.” Villaruel zooms in though very remote objects in the sky by using high-powered telescopes and leaves the rest to his, and perhaps his viewers’, imagination . “Photography has become an indispensable element to [my] image-making processes, especially in painting. [In] oil, which has a character of its own, the image is further explored and experienced.”
He manages not only to play around the scope of painting, but also enjoys the range of photography, seeing different images every time he uses his camera or his telescope for inspiration. He knows that he can manipulate these images to become entirely new objects, given an entirely new perspective from which to create/recreate such objects.
Documentation
