© Mike Doorline

The Project

Alexandre Farto aka Vhils has long been known for his singular ability to carve through the chaos of the city - removing layers of material to reveal the silent presence of what lies beneath. Since the early days of his “Scratching the Surface” series, his work has explored the poetics of decay, using destruction as a creative act. In this new series, he returns to a single image, a single gaze, and submits it to multiple processes of erosion and revealing. Each piece becomes a study in transformation, not through addition, but through the deliberate act of breakdown. 

Iterations #1, a giclée print, is after an original Vhils artwork that gives body to this series, which was hand-carved and laser-cut from the layers of billboards that Vhils has long used as a living  archive of the city, working with accumulated strata of urban advertising found in public space. The second, a screenprint print hand-finished with acid, engraves the portrait through paint and chemical erosion, where time and substance slowly wear into the image. In the third edition, the artist uses an invisible screenprint paint to imprint the artwork. Here, the image emerges through exposure, not removal. Finally, Iterations #4 returns to the raw physicality of Vhils’ process: a screenprint print of an acid agent over a pre-handpainted canvas, in which the portrait is etched into the surface. 

The woman depicted in each of these works faces the viewer directly, as if inscribing her own story onto each surface. Repeated, eroded, revealed, she embodies the anonymous figures who shape the cities quietly, without recognition. In Vhils’s hands, her image becomes a gesture of resistance and remembrance. A reflection on what is built, what is broken, and what endures. 

Iterations #1, #2, #3, #4, 2025
Each an edition of 30
Medium: Giclée Print (#1); Screenprint, quick ink, and bleach (#2 & #4); Screenprint and quick ink (#3)
Sheet Size: 39 3/8 x 27 3/8 in. (100 x 69.5 cm)
Price: $3,000 each, unframed

The Artist

Portuguese artist Alexandre Farto aka Vhils (b. 1987) has developed a distinctive visual language based on the removal of surface layers from walls and other media using unconventional tools and techniques. Starting in the early 2000s through graffiti, his work peels back the layers of urban environments, reflecting on themes of identity, memory, urbanization, and global homogenization. Destroying to create, Vhils turns materials discarded by the city into poetic visual statements, humanizing forgotten spaces through large-scale portraits that capture the essence of anonymous individuals. His practice spans a wide range of media, from bas-relief carving to stencil painting, metal etching, pyrotechnic explosions, and sculptural installations. He has also worked extensively with film and video, having directed music videos, short films, and stage productions. His works can be found in public spaces across the globe and have been exhibited in institutions including MAAT – Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology (Lisbon), Le Centquatre-Paris, CAFA Art Museum (Beijing), Hong Kong Contemporary Art Foundation, Palais de Tokyo (Paris), and the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego. Vhils is constantly experimenting and expanding his visual language, questioning the material and symbolic make-up of contemporary cities. His works, often created in collaboration with local communities, act as a mirror to the social fabric they inhabit, offering a raw and emotional reading of today’s urban condition.

©nashdoeswork

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