VHILS

VHILS is the tag name of Portuguese graf-fiti/street artist Alexandre Farto. He gained recognition when his work of a face carved into a wall appeared alongside a picture by street artist Banksy .

Vhils skilfully explores the historical decay of the Lisbon streetscape (from the post Carnation Revolution to modern day ad repository) by using demolished walls, chis-elled wooden reliefs, and acid-and-bleach-etched billboards .

HISTORY

HOW HE WORKS

By using combinations of acid, bleach, and paint Vhils slowly breaks away at the surface of walls to show portraits underneath.

The photos he uses are from photos of people on the street in London and Lisbon and saved photos from old newspapers.

“In this act of excavating, it’s the process itself which is expressive, more than the fi-nal result. It’s a process of trying to reflect upon our own layers.”

WHY HE WORKS

Its aim is not to come up with solutions but to conduct research, to confront systems, materi-als, processes, elements, to crevate friction and confront the individual with the process, with the system: an active critical process that stems from the same environment upon which it aims to reflect.

Vhils

WALLS

WALLS

WALLS

Street art or Graffiti is a visual culture whose main purpose is communication.

Visual culture is the reflection of a genera-tion and therefore, the more people you have growing up with it and who will understand and support it as a movement, the more main-stream it will eventually become.

Why do you think Vhils etches into buildings?What would it look like if you wanted to create a piece like his?How would you show it? What would be the image?What is a part of history or layers of yourself you would want to show?