VEKS VAN HILLIK

Though his name recalls Flemish painters, Veks Van Hillik was born in a small village in the southwest of France, in 1988. He became interested in ecology at a young age when his older brothers encou- raged him to sketch the local flora and fauna of his region. As he grew older he developed his own dreamlike, surreal style, taking influence from both popular culture, as well as the Flemish masters of past centuries.

With his boundless imagination and armed with acrylics and inks, Veks Van Hillik brings to life a fabulous bestiary of improbable, hybrid creatures; half-man, half-whale, fish with arms and legs, swimming in troubled waters and other fantastic monsters and chimeras. At once serious and naïve, these anthropomorphic beings look back at us with wide-open eyes that seem to provoke our inner world. They question our human nature, our vanities, our obscurities, beliefs and anxieties, and with mischief, they distill a few glimmers of hope. While classical painting and religious symbols permeate his work, Veks Van Hillik's subtle blend asserts his taste for irreverence and facetious imagination. With an aesthetic often inspired by fairy tales or fables, each image is the start of a bizarre story where anything goes, inciting a playful ecological and philosophical reflection with delicate complexity.

His work is a cabinet of aquatic curiosities and wonders, a precious catalog of extravagant hypotheses, a methodical tribute to the to the imaginary and the strange.