Vin Servillon
- Anna Lilli Garai
- Dec 11, 2025
- 6 min read
Vin Servillon is a self-taught Filipino American artist based in New York. He works mainly in painting and has recently begun translating some of his forms into sculpture. The figures he creates have no faces and no fixed identity; their presence comes through posture, scale and the situations they’re placed in. His visual world grew from early drawings and from the experience of moving between different places while growing up. The environment around each figure changes from piece to piece, giving him room to approach the same idea in multiple ways.
In our interview, we talk about how his early drawings became the starting point for this universe, why he removes faces to let emotion sit in posture and gesture, and how painting and sculpture influence each other in his studio. He also speaks about choosing forms by instinct, the role of childhood imagination, and what he hopes to explore next as this world keeps expanding.
Q: When did this visual world start forming for you?
A: I think it started long before I had the words for it. Growing up, I spent a lot of time alone. I’ve always been that kid in the background, drawing quietly while everything else was happening around me. I used to draw with chalk outside our house, and my sketchbooks were full of shapes and characters that didn’t look like anyone real. I think part of it was shyness, and part of it was a way to stay unseen while still getting something out of me. Art wasn’t considered a real path where I’m from, so I hid my drawings under the bed in an old Monopoly box. Those little secret drawings were the early seeds of this world I’m building now. Things shifted for me when I committed to painting as an adult. I realized I wasn’t interested in painting people from the outside — faces, identities, labels. I wanted to paint the feeling of someone. The heaviness. The longing. The restlessness. A lot of that comes from my own lived experiences, but I didn’t want to paint myself literally.Taking the faces away let the forms hold emotion in a different way. Viewers can see themselves in the work. The figures became genderless organisms with their own logic — swelling and tapering, carrying hat-like growths, openings that show sky. They stand in landscapes that feel familiar but not quite placeable.This whole world grew from wanting to show presence without pinning it to identity. These beings aren’t acting out human stories. They just exist in their own atmosphere. And the world keeps changing. I’m honestly still learning its rules as I go.
Q: How do your emotional experiences shape your figures and spaces?
A: A lot of what I make comes from feelings I learned early but didn’t have language for. I grew up building my own inner world, and that’s still where everything starts. The figures — painted or sculpted — come from those quiet parts of myself we all carry, the parts we don’t really talk about but move with every day.The way a body holds its weight can say things we can’t. Some figures look guarded, some tired, some caught in a pause. They’re not meant to be anyone specific. They feel like emotional states that have taken shape.The environments grow the same way. Sometimes they turn into landscapes. Sometimes they’re just a color that feels right. I’m not trying to recreate a place — I’m trying to create an atmosphere that matches whatever is happening inside the figure or whatever I’m feeling while working.Painting and sculpture feel like two sides of the same language. The forms shift, but the intention stays the same. I’m always looking for that moment when an abstract form suddenly feels human, even without a face. That tension is what keeps me going.
Q: How do you know when a form belongs in your world?
A: Honestly, I don’t decide logically. A form belongs when it won’t leave me alone. Sometimes I draw something and forget it right away. Other times a shape sticks with me for days. That’s usually the sign.Some forms feel connected to people I’ve known or versions of myself or emotions I’ve carried for a long time. They show up and something in me just recognizes them. I don’t force it. If it feels like it carries a mood I understand, it stays. If it feels like I’m performing, or trying too hard, I let it go.The right forms always have their own pull.
Q: How do you arrive at gesture and posture with faceless figures?
A: This goes back to childhood for me. I was always drawing and disappearing into my imagination, and honestly that hasn’t changed. The figures come from that same inner place.They’re not portraits. They’re states of being. A tilt, a lean, a pause — those tiny shifts hold so much. The shapes are simple, but they always feel like they’re holding a moment.What interests me is that the figures always feel like something happened right before this moment, and something else is about to happen after. I don’t spell it out. I want viewers to bring their own story into it.The environments behave the same way. A sky, a color, a landscape — they’re not meant to be literal places. They feel more like emotional weather.Painting and sculpture let me explore this world from different angles. My goal is to make these forms feel strangely human without looking human, like you’re catching them mid-story without the full explanation.
Q: What helps you choose between brush and airbrush?
A: It depends on what the painting feels like it needs — or just what I’m feeling that day. The airbrush gives me those soft transitions and glows. The brush brings back weight and grounding.I can tell pretty quickly which one a figure needs. There aren’t rules. I just listen as the painting develops. If the figure needs room, I reach for the airbrush. If it needs presence, I go for the brush. It becomes a conversation with the work.
Q: What guides the changes in your forms?
A: Most changes happen while I’m working. I don’t plan much. I’ll sketch loosely, but nothing is fixed. The figure changes as I respond to it. I change my mind constantly. An opening appears because the body feels too closed. A limb stretches because it feels right.I like pushing the body just far enough that it sits between familiar and strange. That’s where the form feels alive to me.Sculpture changed me a lot too. Holding a form in my hands makes me see things I wouldn’t on a flat surface. Those discoveries feed back into the paintings.I walk in the studio with nothing planned in advance. The figure evolves as the feeling evolves. When the form starts pulling me in instead of me pushing it, that’s when it’s working. I find it so exciting.
Q: What felt different when you started sculpting?
A: It feels like sculpture was waiting for me since childhood. I was obsessed with Play-Doh — the smell, the softness, the way you could turn it into anything. My younger brother and I would make little rounded creatures for hours.Coming back to sculpture now feels like reconnecting with that part of myself. Painting lets me imagine a world, but sculpture lets me touch it. The forms suddenly have weight and awkward charm and their own presence. They stop feeling imaginary and start feeling like they live with me.What surprised me is how different they feel once they’re in the room. You can walk around them. They occupy air. They have personalities that paintings can’t hold. It feels like I’m meeting my figures again in a more physical, playful, intimate way.
Q: How do you think about the environments around your figures?
A: The spaces come from instinct. Sometimes they turn into landscapes. Sometimes they’re just a field of color. I’m always thinking about how much room the figure needs.They’re not literal places — they’re moods.If a figure needs breathing room, the space opens. If it feels heavier or more internal, the background gets quieter. I like the tension of something simple holding something complicated. The environment doesn’t explain the figure. It holds it.
Q: What helps you when a piece becomes difficult?
A: When a painting starts fighting me, I step back. I’ll cook, clean, make a small drawing or sculpture, or hang out with Max. I need distance.When I come back, I try one confident move instead of five cautious ones. Sometimes that means repainting a sky, erasing a figure, or covering something I was attached to. Music helps me loosen up too.
Q: What would you like to explore next?
A: I want the paintings and sculptures to talk to each other more. The figures feel like they belong to the same world, and I’m curious what happens when that world becomes physical — something you can walk into. Larger sculptures, installations, maybe whole environments. At the same time, I’m interested in making very small, intimate objects — pieces you’d keep close. Both extremes open new possibilities.I don’t have the whole path mapped out, and I like it that way. I’m letting the work lead me. I’m curious where these forms want to go next.
