Which Portuguese street artist creates bas-relief portraits by chiseling into building surfaces? Vhils.
Vhils is the artistic name of Alexandre Manuel Dias Farto, a Portuguese artist born in 1987. Rather than primarily adding paint to a wall, he often removes layers of plaster, brick, or concrete to reveal a portrait embedded in the building itself.
His technique can involve chisels, drills, hammers, and controlled explosives, producing distressed, bas-relief faces that appear to emerge from the wall. The process connects his work to themes of erosion, memory, urban change, and the histories held by old surfaces.
Vhils gained international attention after a carved face appeared alongside a Banksy work at London’s Cans Festival in 2008. The name can be confused with other internationally known muralists: Os Gemeos are Brazilian twins, Blu is an Italian artist, and Bordalo II is known for sculptures assembled from discarded materials.