Billboards
Starting in 2005, Vhils began working with accumulated layers of advertising posters he found on the streets. This was the first medium he used to explore a carving technique and led to the conceptual approach of dissecting and decomposing objects and surfaces to reveal the formative layers that describe the intimate relationship between the city and its inhabitants.
Created by layering these posters on top of one another, obliterating the top layer with white paint, and lastly extracting an image by carving into the pile, his billboard artworks bring an assortment of random elements to the surface creating a physical manifestation of the constantly evolving visual identity of urban life.
The body of work based on layered advertising posters removed from the streets explores one of the most important concepts inherent to Vhils’ art: how these randomly created layers reflect not only the speed at which contemporary life is evolving, but also how the city and its inhabitants are locked in an endless cycle of reciprocal shaping. Vhils views them as having a fossil-like quality which can be symbolically dissected and analysed. While expressing the visual and architectural chaos of the urban landscape, these accumulated layers can also be seen as the epitome of the present-day consumer culture of imposition, obsolescence, and waste.