Having been impressed by the portrait work of Portuguese artist Vhils I began to think about how his techniques and process could work for me. The works I was most interested in were those made into the rendering on the outside of buildings in different locations all around the world.
Typically Vhils applies a coat of white paint to an existing rendered wall and chips away to reveal in some parts the grey of the sand and cement render and in other areas the entire render is removed to reveal the brick or block of the wall underneath. In this way tonal differences are achieved to create a portrait.
Time, space and expense rule me out of trying similar large scale works into walls so I thought about how I could use other multi layered surfaces. Corrugated cardboard looked to me to have some potential. Despite its light weight it is a very resilient and rugged material, so I decided to try a very small scale copy of a Vhils portrait.
The portrait I chose was Vhils contribution to Banksy’s Cans Festival 2008 in London. I chose this work because it was one of Vhils simpler but still highly effective pieces I applied a thin wash of white emulsion to a roughly 15 x 15cm square of corrugated cardboard and drew in the eyes with compressed charcoal and used pencil to draw in the lightly shaded areas of the face. Staying faithful to Vhils original, I tore away the areas Vhils had cut away to reveal the corrugated layer of cardboard underneath.
The thing I liked most about the Vhils portraits was the way the stripping of layers described the damage, the decay with the passing of time, the emotional and sometimes physical traces and shadows left on a person by their life experiences. But above all that the areas left some way intact and functioning described the resilience and strength of that person through the resilience and strength of the materials used. These portraits are to me positive and uplifting because of this.
Did the use of cardboard communicate some of these qualities in my own small scale copy? I’m glad to say that they did. The copy could never have the drama of the Vhils original but mostly I believe that this is a result of the difference in scale. The resilience and strength of the cardboard indeed transferred its own qualities into the small portrait and I was happy enough with the results to try one of my own compositions on a larger scale. One small problem was was the smaller differences in tone in the different layers of the cardboard but I am confident that these can be solved with further experiments with washes and perhaps added layers of cardboard to create greater depth and shadow.
Overall a very positive and rewarding exploration of new materials and techniques.
