Vermont Coronel’s Stencil Art

Vermont Coronel, "Connection", detail, layers of painted stencils

Vermont Coronel has professed his admiration for Logan Hicks, the American stencil artist known for his detailed urban landscapes. Unsurprising then that he has chosen to work with the same medium: layers of meticulously fabricated stencils, traced from his own photos of random city scenes, translated to canvas via spray-painted acrylic. It takes a minimum of three layers of stencils to complete an image, and it takes Vermont a week to create each layer.

Like Hicks and Banksy (perhaps the most famous of all stencil artists), Vermont has had his share of street art adventures, tagging portions of Metro Manila as a member of Pilipinas Street Plan. This solo exhibit at The Drawing Room marks his foray into the mainstream.

For Spirit of A Place, Vermont’s gallery debut, he has presented us with fragments of a city captured in shades of slate and gray, pictures full of shadow and mystery. He calls five of them negative images, photos on canvas that he has constructed by using stencils in the traditional way, spraying paint from aerosol cans to highlight the patterns that have been cut out.

I liked what he did with the two works he calls his positives. These images have been put together by piling the actual stencils atop the other, creating three-dimensional images by painting each layer a different color. This allows us to see just how much work he has put into his stencils. He has incised them so precisely, they resemble layers of lace.

Vermont Coronel, Spirit of A Place, runs from 28 April to 22 May 2012 at The Drawing Room, 1007 Metropolitan Avenue, Metrostar Bldg., Makati City. Phone (632) 897-7877 or visit www.drawingroomgallery.com