By: Keith Estiler
studio visits
studio visits
Othelo Gervacio is somewhat of a flower hound. As HYPEBEAST walks throughout the artist’s Bushwick studio, we encounter containers filled to the brim with varying florae nearing the end of their life cycle. They’re an odd choice for source material, but Gervacio says he’s magnetized by their “dark beauty that has a romantic edge to it.”
These wilting flowers are memorialized in a series of large-scale oil paintings called Love Letters. At his studio, the artist puts the finishing touches on a new piece while surrounded by canvasses spotlighting a slew of exotic flora including carnations, spider lilies, and mallows. “I named the series Love Letters because I wanted to trigger conversations between the viewer and the piece,” he says. “Flowers have unique meanings in different cultures and I’m interested in how people interpret them.”
The Love Letters project is just one tiny part of the 34-year-old artist’s diverse oeuvre. In the studio, Gervacio opens a large box containing old watercolor illustrations, works on paper and graphic newsprints that chronicle his creative career — both as a fine artist and commercial designer. He’s an expert in merging contrasting subjects, pairing his photorreal flowers with demonic characters like the Grim Reaper. Underlining his unruly compositions are melancholic phrases such as “No Future,” “Living Dead” and “Can’t Sleep” executed in drippy letterforms gleaned from his graffiti background.
Gervacio says his punk references and bold drawing style were developed during the time he worked for acclaimed tattoo artist and illustrator Scott Campbell back in 2005. He helped establish a trajectory for Campbell’s fine art practice and also tackled commercial projects with the likes of Louis Vuitton, Nike and other fashion brands. After managing Campbell’s studio for five years, Gervacio then went on to work for his friend’s creative agency called Alldayeveryday. He took on the role of art director at the company because he wanted to spearhead more client-based projects and hone his skills on the agency side of things. When he wasn’t working on strategies and designs for big clients like Off-White™ or The Standard Hotel, Gervacio spent time working on his personal artworks.
Exploring Othelo Gervacio’s Studio of Dark Beauty
Exploring the otherworldly artworks of the Brooklyn-based painter and sculptor.
Brooklyn, NY
othelogervacio.com
Tell us about your graffiti background.
Yok & Sheryo
Since I was 12 all the way up to 16, I was just painting trains and doing legal walls here and there. I was also interested in the fine art world, mainly the pop art side. I love Keith Haring and he was kind of character who was outside of graffiti, but still a part of it.
Growing up in the Virginia suburbs, of course, I wasn't exposed to graffiti unless I was visiting New York City or through word of mouth. Things just got passed down south. I really loved visiting the Pop Shop on Lafayette in New York City. When I went there, I always bought at least one or two things. I also used to frequent the Bomb The System. I don't know if it's still there anymore, it was an old graffiti store.
Did you have similar styles before you met?
Sheryo: My style is really wonky and really imperfect because I like imperfection. My lines were super wavy when I drew and his was kind of straighter. He would draw a straight line. Try to get really straight on the wall and spray can and I'll be like, "Yo. I'm just going to do it wonky." Because it's easier. It's done by hand.
Yok: I had a cleaner style. A bit more, I don't know, it was a bit more work and trouble to make the cleaner style and then I met Sheryo and she had this loose, wobbly, wonky style and I was envious of it and kind of adapted into that. It’s kind of like that new airbrush work that we've been doing. I kind of just embrace the looseness and the wonkiness of it in the conception.
I moved to New York in 2006 and I started working for Scott Campbell as a studio manager and as his assistant. I was like 21 at the time and working on all sorts of projects with him. I landed that job through a mutual friend who also moved to New York at the same time as me. Scott was starting a studio for graphic design and had commissions from Nike and a few fashion brands at that point.
At that time, nobody else had a laser machine in the city. Scott had gone to Nike campus and played with one. He said, “I got to get one of these.” He was going to buy a car or a laser machine and he stuck with the laser machine. Within the first few months, we were throwing everything in there from pizzas to books to pillows.
It was a natural transition from painting skulls and the darker stuff. I mean they were wilting flowers and it still had this melancholy feel to it. I think it was a nice progression to where I landed. It was a whole new process for me as well because I was sourcing the flowers, photographing them, and completely using them as a material all the way through.
How did you get into art?
It all started when I was a kid. I had a lot of family members that were into art, one of my uncles worked for Topps Cards in the '80s and he was a retoucher. And what that meant in the '80s was an airbrusher. I went with my dad to see him at work one day, I was like five-years-old, I saw his operation and what he can do. Topps owned the Garbage Pail Kids and had all the good candy and baseball cards so it was awesome. That was my first introduction to art. I also had cousins that were in the New York graffiti scene and would occasionally visit them throughout my childhood. Their subway art and of course the Style Wars documentary really opened me up to that subculture.
When did you move to New York City?
I was doing reverse painted acrylic polymer peel paintings for a long time, and those were hyper-detailed and all super hard-edged and super meticulous. It got to a point with that where I guess around like 2012, I wanted to start doing something more visceral and more painterly and less sort of slick.
Did you always carry this dark theme throughout your works since that first exhibit?
Good advice is work a lot, experiment a lot, and see a lot of art. Find out who the artist is who you really admire and what do you like about their work, what can you bring into the work, but also how can you experiment with materials and make paint do something that's your own language. At least for me, that's always been really important to my practice.
“I’m always crossing over my knowledge from this graphic design and art direction into my fine art practice which I find is a different mode of thinking and approach.”
cj hendry
“I’m carefully picking and choosing brands that resonate with me and have a good concept behind it.”
Sheryo: Not as much as we like to. Now, we’re very busy with studio work and traveling to different locations in Southeast Asia.
Yok: Yeah, we’re busy finding places to do installations. It’s our new thing. We also travel often to learn niche handicrafts. We get stoked about going to places like Indonesia and spend months learning how to do Batik and making other local artisan works.
“There are elements of creativity in what I do but it's very process-focused work.”
Cj Hendry
I worked for Campbell for four or five years. I was looking for something new and a buddy of mine started a creative agency called Alldayeveryday and I kind of wanted to shift back into that side of things. I wanted to exercise my creative mind as an art director. I did that for a few years but also moonlighting in the studio — making work and honing my skill. I learned a lot of techniques from Scott obviously.
How long did you work for Scott Campbell?
There was a small gallery in the Lower East Side that my friend Erik Foss use to own called Fuse Gallery and it was behind this bar called Lit on 6th Street. The gallery showed a lot of amazing downtown New York artists in the early 2000s. Everybody from like Dan Colen to Dash Snow, Cheryl Dunn, a lot of old school New York artists. He asked me to do a show and I was like, “Man, this was the first time somebody asked me to participate in the exhibition.” When I first moved to New York, those guys were all friends with Scott and I got to be around all those guys and I was really inspired by them and their era of art. Them coming up together and being leaders of outsider art was very influential to the things that I'm doing right now.
Tell us about your first exhibitions in New York City.
Honestly, I went out on a whim by showing these pieces and hopefully seeing if people would like it. I felt passionate about it and the show did really well. Right around the same time, I started working with Virgil Abloh. It was a very good wave and since then.
Were you hesitant to show your work to the public for the first time?
Back in 2014, a lot of my friends told me that I would do really well with oil paint and so I took a crash course. I said screw it, I'll start trying to do oil. Sure enough, it was very different from watercolor, but it was very fun. Obviously, you can have richer colors and the working time is a lot more flexible. There was a lot of YouTube-ing, a lot of asking friends tip, a lot of doing things on my own, and a lot of messing things up. Again as a craftsman, I'm always striving to elevate my work.
When did you make the transition to oil paints?
Are you both still doing that now?
The stuff crosses over aesthetically, but I try not to crossover too much. I keep the flowers in the fine art space and some of the new pieces I'm working on in its own space. Obviously, I have this aesthetic in the graphic world. Most of the stuff that comes into the commercial graphic world is more on the watercolor side. I think that stuff translates better for graphics, garments, and that sort of thing. but, who knows? I don't know what the future holds.
Do graphic elements in your commissioned work ever cross over to your personal practice?
There's a lot going on in the American socio-political landscape, especially with gun violence. I come from a state where guns are legal and there are gun shops everywhere. I was never a huge fan. I'm not against it completely, but I think there should be some control. I started collecting these targets from eBay, and graphically alone they were very arresting. It's nostalgic, the coloring is different, and the people featured in the targets were strange. One guy looks like a villain, but in another one, it's a cop. Another target featured a subject with his hand open and I guess you can replace things in their hand with a newspaper or a gun. You can customize it in a few ways. So, I started painting on those as almost like a commentary to American gun violence.
Let’s talk about your target pieces that comment on gun violence. What made you want to start that series?
Right now, I've been working on the more commercial end of things. Realistically speaking, commercial projects pay the bills. I can't say no to having something that will help my rent at home, my studio, my art materials, etc. There's always a balance. At the end of the day, I want to spend all my time making art in the studio. I just have to keep pushing what I'm doing.
What projects are you currently working on now?
I'm very careful about the next steps and who I am collaborating with now. Basically, not taking everything that comes my way. I’m carefully picking and choosing brands that resonate with me and have a good concept behind it. That being said, I got a few things in the works that I can't really talk about now, but I'm very happy about that are going to be coming later this year or early next year.
You’ve done collaborations with Virgil Abloh, Eric Koston from Numbers, and more. Who or what brand are you thinking of collaborating with next?
It was in this huge gallery in Downtown Los Angeles, and it was the first time showing my oil paintings. It was a two-person show with Matt McCormick called “Not As It Seems, Nothing As It Seems” back in 2016. The space was owned by the creative agency Alldayeveryday at that point. It was a massive warehouse that was converted into this gallery. In addition to the Love Letter series, I also did three warped peace signs made of wood. That was the beginning of a lot of works that I'm still continuing on.
When did you start the Love Letter series?
These days, Gervacio is channeling most of his energy to elevate his fine art practice while handling commissioned projects on the side. He’s not exactly a newcomer in the fine art circuit, having done solo and group exhibition shows at local New York City galleries founded by his fellow artist friends. His first solo exhibition was at Fuse Gallery curated by Erik Foss back in 2011 called “Postboredom” and he introduced his flower compositions at Gogy Esparza’s Magic Gallery for the 2015 show entitled “All Apologies.”
We sit down with the artist to explore his upbringing, mentorship from Scott Campbell, and his motive behind pursuing a full-time gig as a professional artist. Read the full interview below.
I did a series of Madonna paintings and a few other punk/metal-inspired works. There was a lot of typography, which for me, stemmed from the crossover of being a graphic designer and an artist. I've always been obsessed with type and fonts like Old English. I featured a lot of short phrases. That was kind of the first place that I showed and from there, Instagram launched right after that. It became the main channel for me to post work and people were starting to take notice of it. From then on, I did a few group shows. I was part of the downtown scene and those group of artists. The first big show after that was at Magic Gallery — that was Gogy Esparza's space. It was a solo show at the space.
What works did you display at that show?
I've been in and out of the commercial world doing projects here and there. I was just focusing on time in the studio, experimenting, and starting to get into more sculptural pieces that are not here in the studio right now. But again, I’m always crossing over my knowledge from this graphic design and art direction into my fine art practice which I find is a different mode of thinking and approach. I started doing this warped thing with a lot of my typography and also the pieces so that was actually computer-generated and I'm bringing it into this tangible space. Some of the sculptural work that I'm working on is actually very derivative of that and comes from that.
How did you balance your commissioned projects with your personal work?
“At the end of the day, I want to spend all my time making art in the studio. I just have to keep pushing what I'm doing.”
Were you hesitant to show your work to the public for the first time?
Honestly, I went out on a whim by showing these pieces and hopefully seeing if people would like it. I felt passionate about it and the show did really well. Right around the same time, I started working with Virgil Abloh. It was a very good wave and since then.
When did you make the transition to oil paints?
Back in 2014, a lot of my friends told me that I would do really well with oil paint and so I took a crash course. I said screw it, I'll start trying to do oil. Sure enough, it was very different from watercolor, but it was very fun. Obviously, you can have richer colors and the working time is a lot more flexible. There was a lot of YouTube-ing, a lot of asking friends tip, a lot of doing things on my own, and a lot of messing things up. Again as a craftsman, I'm always striving to elevate my work.
When did you start the Love Letter series?
It was in this huge gallery in Downtown Los Angeles, and it was the first time showing my oil paintings. It was a two-person show with Matt McCormick called “Not As It Seems, Nothing As It Seems” back in 2016. The space was owned by the creative agency Alldayeveryday at that point. It was a massive warehouse that was converted into this gallery. In addition to the Love Letter series, I also did three warped peace signs made of wood. That was the beginning of a lot of works that I'm still continuing on.
How did you balance your commissioned projects with your personal work?
I've been in and out of the commercial world doing projects here and there. I was just focusing on time in the studio, experimenting, and starting to get into more sculptural pieces that are not here in the studio right now. But again, I’m always crossing over my knowledge from this graphic design and art direction into my fine art practice which I find is a different mode of thinking and approach. I started doing this warped thing with a lot of my typography and also the pieces so that was actually computer-generated and I'm bringing it into this tangible space. Some of the sculptural work that I'm working on is actually very derivative of that and comes from that.
“I’m always crossing over my knowledge from this graphic design and art direction into my fine art practice which I find is a different mode of thinking and approach.”
