MANILA, PHILIPPINES – Melvin Galapon’s pieces remind us of olden boxy televisions — from the color palette down to the glitches and visual noise onscreen. With the slight tweaks on what looks like straight lines, Melvin can create a poster that seem plain at first glance but unveil text when seen from a lateral view.
Melvin is a Graphic Artist hailing from a small town in the North West of England. A graduate from Central St. Martins, he has worked with the likes of Nike, Nokia, Wallpaper* and Creative Review to name but a few.
He has been featured in various magazines & books worldwide and has exhibited in London, Singapore, Tokyo, Bangkok, LA & Sweden.
Melvin is currently based in London where along with his love of music, science fiction & geometry he spends his time working on a prolific mix of portraits, type, installations, pattern & video work with a strong curiosity in experimentation and an openness for interesting personal/brand/client collaborations. He is also Creative Director of clothing label A-Ok, where he oversees all aspects of the brand, from Branding to Production.
His works seem to revolve around the bare essentials of art: lines, pixels, geometry and solid colors. Being an ‘80s kid, he pulls his inspiration from deconstructing the technology that have impacted his young-adult phase and is still evolving to this day: the telly.
“Everything nowadays, is all about having everything made crisp and clear so I guess my work is quite nostalgic,” Melvin said during his first exhibit in the Philippines held at adobo creative hub: Who? What? Where? held on December 7.
As a child, he has always excelled in the arts. It was, in fact, an art contest he won in his childhood that solidified where he wanted to go. Initially, he wanted to be an architect but his interests led him into drawing, typography, and graphics as he grew older.
The young Melvin had a lot of room to explore his style and this was evident as he flipped his folio of older works during the night of the exhibit. This included “Wallpaper* Set Design,” which used different colored gaff tapes overlapping one another, and distorting dimensions to draw the eye into focus.
He is also known for taking pixel art and line art to the next level. Among his portraits are those of John Logie Baird, and Alexander Graham Bell made reinterpreted with the sound waves that they have contributed to the world.
“I guess I’m deconstructing the way technology used to be perceived with pixels and stuff back in the ‘80s, ‘90s. If you trace it back to the ‘70s and the ‘80s, everything was sort of very pixelated, everything on TV was looked quite clunky.”
Some of the works that were put on the exhibit were: “Glitch Installation,” a decorative pixel based vinyl installation; and Cover of the Creative Review Annual 2014.
In his exhibit, he shone the spotlight into the good of going back to basics. With the slightest alterations in color, direction, and knowing where to cut. He also showed some of his collaborative work with different artists: (1) T.E.A.M., the meaning of which was cut into a stencil and placed over a portrait; (2) Flux at Tokyobike, a custom design for a bike he made for Haru.
The way he put it, there is a big influence of the analogue film into the way he creates his art. Studying from the era without the digital camera, he was trained to think ahead of the process before creating his pieces.
“When I was in college, we used to have to develop our own film. In a photography elective, they would give us a camera, we’d have our film in it and we’d walk around (to search for) leads, and we’d just go around and take photographs but because it’s so limited with the film you’d use, you’ve got to think more about how you’re shooting.”
“I still think with an analogue eye,” he added. By thinking about all the little things that play into the big picture, he creates a system that is uniquely his.
“Everything that you do has a system. Whether it’s pixel or straight lines, everything has a system.” he emphasized. Even before he puts together the work, there is already a graphical way of thinking.
Melvin admitted that despite his years of practice, he is still trying to figure out the art side of approaching projects. He is more methodical in the way he designs his pieces. While there are several routes to a project, he said that he tries to see how far he can push a brief. Essentially, there are different routes he can take but he always keeps it straight.
One of the latest projects he has done is a mural painted on a wall of Jealous Gallery in London. Entitled Frequency, it was one of the most challenging things he has done in terms of scale and canvas.
Currently, he is experimenting with a film in collaboration with other artists. The film, which he has been crafting sporadically for the past few years, still contains the elements of his previous works. But like most of his pieces, Melvin Galapon will not stop at one line, one color, and one dimension.
