Resins
Vhils first began working with epoxy resin in the context of the Billboards body of work. By redeploying some piles of carved advertising posters removed from the street and dipping them in resin, he sought to imbue them with a fossil-like quality. Comprising various layers of fragmented posters interspersed with spray-painted scrawls and dipped in resin, this first series of compact works played with the idea of crystallisation – of capturing various symbolic material elements from our present-day culture in order to preserve them for the future as a memory of the current times.
Mirroring the myriad involuntary visual dialogues crated by anonymous gestures commonly seen on city walls, these works that feature human portraits emerging from their overlaid density speak of how these randomly created superimpositions 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.
Over time, these evolved into thick, three-dimensional assemblages encased in resin, exploring the idea of “preservation in matter” which seeks to to convey the impression of fossilised inclusions captured and preserved for posterity. Resulting from a complex accumulation process with multiple layers of fragmented carved posters and resin, these high-density, compact works with great depth address issues inherent to our contemporary consumer societies and the culture of obsolescence and fast-replacement they induce us to follow – the recurrent use of the eye motif reminding us of the importance of the human element that lies at the heart of this equation, poetically expressing something of the myriad lives, the stories, the emotions that make up the urban environment.
