arts

Artist Victor Verhelst, Alchemist of the Digital World

On his laptop, Victor Verhelst draws surrealist landscapes full of colour, stretching the boundaries between the physical and the virtual. He then prints them onto textiles, paper, or even a record sleeve.

Victor Verhelst is still in a hurry when he arrives for the interview. Less than a week ago, he travelled with his textile installation Starlight Shine from the Pinacoteca Civica Museum in Como, Italy, to the gigantic Heimtextil Messe in Frankfurt. With metres of carpet and curtains, it was a major task to set up and take down. But as soon as the tactile, explosive 2D and 3D images clicked into place, they took visitors on an immersive journey.

The pavilion was created as a commission by Designregio Kortrijk in collaboration with Fedustria, the Belgian federation for the textiles, wood, and furniture sectors, which wanted to consider notions of recycling and sustainability. “I got the chance to work with six Belgian textile producers,” Verhelst explains. “Instead of immediately working with their waste products and offcuts, I first looked at their strengths. What are they already approaching with an eye on sustainability? The most important thing for companies like these is to increase the sustainability of their production.”

While the collaboration focused on rediscovering Belgian textile producers, it also revealed just how much of the national textile industry has already disappeared, and with it, a piece of culture and history. Many companies have moved their operations abroad, where production costs are lower. This fascinates Verhelst because he’s no stranger to the sector. As a child, he would accompany his parents, furniture makers, to large conventions. “I quickly felt at home surrounded by the producers in Frankfurt. And as an artist, I need them because I design on my laptop and have two left hands. Without them, I’m nothing. And vice versa—producers are nothing without makers.”

Monsters and cartoons

The circular economy was where it all began for Verhelst during his studies in graphic design. With fellow student Thomas Renwart, he worked on a master’s project about textile scraps. “We wanted to demonstrate all of the things you can do with material surpluses, without having to buy new textiles. The result was a series of artistic carpets and hangings, which we started to sell after graduation under the name Les Monseigneurs.”

The wall hangings—real paintings made of textile—quickly became successful. Nevertheless, Verhelst decided to go his own way in 2020. “I was still so young and was being pushed in all directions with Les Monseigneurs. I don’t like being pigeonholed and wanted to work more broadly than just carpets,” he says. “Of course, I’m glad that I did it, because I now know what I do and don’t want to do. I learned that an art practice sometimes comes to fuller fruition when you follow your own path. I feel truer to myself now.”

When Verhelst left Les Monseigneurs, he first watched films non-stop for two months. One that particularly spoke to him was Hearts of Darkness, the documentary about the filming process of Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now. “In the film, the director explains just how much stress that film caused him, and how much effort it required from him. He even had to take out a second mortgage on his house. At the end, Coppola says: ‘I hope that my film inspires a child to take their father’s camera and start filming. And that the professionalism of the film industry disappears, and we really learn to look at film as pure art.’ I was so moved by that sincerity—the sincerity to tell your own story.”

It reminded Verhelst to return to what he has always loved to do: drawing cartoony pictures full of monsters, cityscapes, and bombastic colours. At the same time, he realised that a film is a Gesamtkunstwerk, requiring a big team, the right music, actors, and lighting… “At a chef’s table, it’s not just about the chef but also about the restaurant, the decoration of the room, and even the waiters. The same is the case for art: it’s about the artwork, but also about the gallery, the music that’s playing during the show, and so on. I’m interested in this total experience. That’s why I’m so fascinated by the combination of images and music. I recently designed the record sleeve and music video for Nele De Gussem, and I make live visuals for GERARD, the musical alter ego of Elias Durnez.”

Saturated

His laptop is his primary instrument for making these images, which raises questions about digital art. For Verhelst, it comes down to the realisation that we just can’t avoid the digital anymore. “If you make a sculpture and take photos of it to post online, you translate your work to a digital platform. Maybe you already have in mind how it will look online when you take the photo, or even when you make the sculpture. Then the question is: is the digital platform a tool, or is the photo of the sculpture a piece of digital art in itself?”

Another such question: who owns the rights to digital art? “The internet has had a Wild West period, during which everybody just did as they pleased. I think we’re feeling the consequences of that today,” says Verhelst. “The soil is saturated, and artists give away their images for a few likes here and there. In response to this, NFT marketplaces (online platforms where NFTs can be bought and sold, ed.) now exist, where you can share your images and remain their owner.”

Ritual

Verhelst sees the digital world as a source of possibilities, but his work really comes to life in the physical domain. Whether it’s a gigantic LED screen, the warm texture of a carpet, or a risograph print, the transition from pixel to material is essential. “The reason that I design on the computer—through an intuitive combination of Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and old software—is mainly because I find digital aesthetics so appealing; think of Game Boy culture, PS2 games, sci-fi, and B-movies. Beyond that, my work always departs from the question: ‘How do we view landscapes today?’ Well, we spend so much time on our screens that the non-physical world has become part of that contemporary landscape.”

He is aware that there’s a valuable but also melancholy side to internet culture, and he chronicles this addictive, absurdist atmosphere in Trippy Vegas. In this series, he collects his digital drawings of virtual buildings and structures and lets them melt together into a surreal city.

Verhelst pursues these collaborations as long as he can stay close to his mission: to dare to strive towards total experiences. Whether it involves a large installation in a public space or an intimate exhibition in a gallery, the goal is to immerse the audience in his art.

There’s the chef’s table again. “I recently clothed a government building in The Hague. I mounted an LED screen on the façade with a clock that follows the day from sunrise to sunset. In the corridor, I hung a series of risograph prints of suns. Or last year, for the Us By Night event in Antwerp, I printed a 50-metre banner. It surrounded the visitor, like a fresco does when you step into a church. The power to disappear into something—that’s what I’m searching for. Like at the cinema, when the lights go off and the ritual begins.”

Victor Verhelst exhibits from 3 April until 3 May at Plus One Gallery, Antwerp

• digital art
• visual arts