Metal
Vhils’ work with acid-etched metal plates developed from the days he used to tag on metal and glass surfaces around the city with corrosive materials such as pens filled with nitric acid, which would slowly eat away at the surface. Through experimentation, this progressed into a technique similar to that employed to engrave printing plates, which have been used in the art world for centuries. By employing this corrosive process, this body of work explores the concept of destruction as a means of creation in interaction with the natural environment.
More recent works display an advancement of this technique created with multiple metal plates arranged together into a single composition. Each plate displays various images appropriated from advertisements, signage, and urban landscapes sourced from locations around the world. The visual cacophony created by the contrasting images juxtaposed with glimpses of individual faces brings to mind the overflow of information that constantly bombards residents of the urban space and exposes all the aspects of fragmentation affecting the formation of contemporary identity.
While also addressing the issue of waste generated by our voracious consumer habits by making use of discarded objects recovered from the scrapyard – doors, compacted scrap cubes, fire hose boxes, and other elements –, some works in this series of hand-carved metal items also stand as fossils or fragments of our industrialised societies.
