Kevin Roque’s illustrations are a product of keen observation. His detailed pen-on-paper artworks examine light, darkness, and shadows, unfolding distinct vignettes of the human experience.
Before pursuing Fine Arts at UP Diliman, Roque was a graphic designer and illustrator in the publishing industry from 2012 to 2017. His first degree was in computer science at De La Salle University-Manila, where he won an honorable mention in the DLSU Annual Awards for Visual Arts.
In 2017, he held his first solo exhibition at Prism Gallery in Makati City and began a second degree in Studio Arts at the University of the Philippines, Diliman.
A year later, Roque was selected as one of three artists to join the first annual eight-week artist-in-residence program of the Center for Art, New Ventures and Sustainable Development (CANVAS) and afterward had his second solo exhibition there.
His third solo show, "2020," came at the onset of the pandemic. Aptly named after the year that upended all the normal routines in our lives, the exhibit is a visual journal of narrative drawings with coded references to political and social conditions that Roque and other Filipinos experienced in that year. It was exhibited on Marahuyo Art Projects, an online platform and virtual art space.
He is currently a part of Batch Daluyan of Linangan Art Residency's Amuyong Apprenticeship Program.
Quaderno by Kevin Roque
Lutang | graphite on paper (2020)
Take-out | graphite on paper (2020)
Odisea | graphite on paper (2020)
Casa | graphite on paper (2017)