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Wood

An integral part of his oeuvre, Vhils has been making prolific use of wood as a source material since first experimenting with it in 2009. This has mostly taken the form of carving wooden objects with the aid of hand tools – mainly doors, shutters and panels recovered from derelict buildings and sites. The material and conceptual link with the urban environment lies in their status as discarded objects, part of the waste the city generates during its cycles of destruction and creation in its ever-ambitious expansion.


While the carved portraits seek to imbue these wooden components with a symbolic representation of life, the patterns, motifs, and signage elements that can be seen encroaching on them, along with the forced agglutination of disparate fragments, all speak of how human identity is becoming increasingly impacted by the city’s dissonant visual discourse, leaving little room for its citizens to become who they really are, free from external, partisan influence.


The artist’s gesture further subverts the worthlessness of the original articles by elevating them to prized aesthetic objects – transferring them from the profane space of the landfill to the sacred space of the gallery. Vhils’ recurrent use of wooden doors also intends to symbolise the correlation and opposition between the private and public realms – the two spheres that dictate our relationship with society and the world at large.

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Burnt Series #07, 2024 / 181 × 113 cmWooden panels, burned and hand-carvedphoto by Vhilstudio
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Burnt Series #07, 2024 / 181 × 113 cmWooden panels, burned and hand-carvedphoto by Vhilstudio
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MS Collection Series #01, 2024 / 203 × 213 cmHand-carved wooden doorsphoto by Vhilstudio
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MS Collection Series #02, 2024 / 201 × 215 cmHand-carved wooden doorsphoto by Vhilstudio
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Resonance Series #02, 2023 / 221 × 74 cmHand-carved wooden doorphoto by Vhilstudio
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Resonance Series #04, 2023 / 230 × 130 cmHand-carved wooden door_photo by Vhilstudio
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Resonance Series #01, 2023 / 210 x 62 x 5 cmHand-carved wooden doorphoto by João Mau
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Resonance Series #01, 2023 / 210 x 62 x 5 cmHand-carved wooden doorphoto by João Mau
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Minutiae Series #02, 2023 / 213 × 53 cmHand-carved wooden doorsphoto by Vhilstudio
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Minutiae Series #05, 2023 / 232 × 75 cmHand-carved wooden doorsphoto by Vhilstudio
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Chasm Series #29, 2023 / 180 × 87 cmHand-carved wooden doorsphoto by Vhilstudio
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Burnt Series #03, 2022 / 360 × 154 cmWooden panels, burned and hand-carvedphoto by Vhilstudio
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Burnt Series #03, 2022 / 360 × 154 cmWooden panels, burned and hand-carvedphoto by Vhilstudio
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Graven Series #12, 2021 / 115 × 231 × 7 cmHand-carved old wooden doorsphoto by Vhilstudio
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Dispersal Series #19, 2020 / 218 × 109 × 5 cmHand-carved old wooden doorsphoto by Vhilstudio
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Dispersal Series #20, 2020 / 229 × 120cmHand-carved old wooden doorsphoto by Alexander Silva
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Taint Series #22, 2020 / 208,6 × 86 cmHand-carved old wooden doorsphoto by Vhilstudio
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Orderliness Series #06, 2020 / 260 x 239 cmOld wooden doors, hand-carved, cut and assembledphoto by Vhilstudio
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Orderliness Series #06, 2020 / 260 x 239 cmOld wooden doors, hand-carved, cut and assembledphoto by Vhilstudio
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Graven Series #04, 2019 / 79,5 × 209 cmHand-carved old wooden doorsphoto by Alexander Silva
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Graven Series #06 / 87 × 194,5 cmHand-carved old wooden doorsphoto by Vhilstudio
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Graven Series #01, 2019 / 96 × 193 cmHand-carved old wooden doorphoto by Alexander Silva
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Taint Series #01, 2019 / 231 × 114 × 6,5 cmHand-carved old wooden doorsphoto by Vhilstudio
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Taint Series #02, 2019 / 210,5 × 80 × 5,5 cmHand-carved old wooden doorsphoto by Vhilstudio
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Orderliness Series #05, 2019 / 226.5 × 196 cmHand-carved old wooden door with wooden inlaysphoto by Alexander Silva
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Babel, 2014 / Various dimensionsInstallation with hand-carved old wooden doors and metal scaffoldingphoto by Vhilstudio
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Dispersal Series #05, 2018 / 225 × 111 cmHand-carved old wooden doorsphoto by Vhilstudio
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Depict Series #09, 2018 / 232 × 120 cmHand-carved old wooden doorsphoto by Vhilstudio
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Still Series #07, 2017 / 215 × 76 cmHand-carved old wooden doorsphoto by Vhilstudio
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Still Series #09, 2017 / 214 × 93 cmHand-carved old wooden doorsphoto by Vhilstudio
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Still Series #01, #02 and #05, 2016 / 193 × 158 cmHand-carved old wooden doorsphoto by Bruno Lopes