Gijs Vanhee

Gijs Vanhee (1982) lives in Mechelen, Belgium, and has a background in illustration. He had a passion for drawing and graffiti since his childhood, but since 2016 he tries to tell a coherent story throughout his body of work, that spreads out over paper, canvas, print, digital art, and mural paintings. Narrative drawings in which humans with the head of a bird play a leading role. The search for freedom forms the common thread throughout his work, as well as the balance between nature and society. His works are an invitation to take time to stop and look around, to search in the details for stories or questions about us humans or how we are drifted away from who we are. Always with a touch of melancholy but never melodramatic. Sometimes the work is autobiographical or tells an anecdote about the place, and often he uses images he has seen somewhere but put them in a different context. His drawings have a very recognizable style, often in black and white or with limited use of colour. With murals, the elements or textures present usually play an important role in the work.

Photo: Mihaela Draganova