Vhils

Vhils, born Alexandre Farto in 1987, is a Portuguese artist who splits his time between Lisbon and London. He grew up in Seixal, an industrial suburb on the outskirts of Lisbon, and started out as a graffiti writer in the early 2000s. He first presented Scratching the Surface in Lisbon in 2007, and came to wider attention the following year exhibiting alongside Banksy at London's Cans Festival, a show that made the front page of The Times. Vhils carves, drills and blasts through walls, metal and other urban materials to reveal portraits hidden beneath their surfaces, a technique that defines his practice. He has worked with the Centre Pompidou in Paris and the Barbican Centre in London, and with communities in Cape Verde and the favelas of Rio de Janeiro. In 2022 he released the digital work Torned.