VEKS VAN HILLIK 

ABSURD LOGIC

solo exhibition

June 21st - July 13th, 2025

Closing Reception: Friday, July 11th

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We asked Veks Van Hillik for the soundtrack to ABSURD LOGIC, his new fourteen-piece collection of paintings and works on paper. The album ‘Tribal Alliance,’ a collab by Mountain Realm and Tales Under the Oak, led us down a very strange rabbit hole of ‘dungeon synth’ (a black metal spinoff that sounds like you think it would—but better). “It’s something I listened to a lot while painting this series,” Veks told us. “It feels both ancient and surreal, like a dreamstate in the woods.”

 

The pairing makes total sense; ABSURD LOGIC is a droning yet romantic harmony of crumbling archways and half-lit corridors, chessboard courtyards and trapdoor altars. Inside, the characters are warped and insane. Motionless, they stare at you, their fins, wings and tentacles balanced and juggling the unlikeliest postures, while you search for the memory of your mind. 

 

“Madness, in the sense of ‘non-normative’ or outsider thinking, is a recurring interest for me and my work. The ‘stone of madness’ was a medieval belief—people thought insanity came from a literal stone inside the head—and balancing objects on spheres references the French expression ‘pedre la boule,’ to lose your marbles/lose your mind…Lately, I’ve been more and more drawn to compositions inspired by Flemish still life and vanitas painting. I love how still lifes are absurd by nature—objects appear almost magically placed like visual theatre. While sketching, I began experimenting with odd arrangements—piling rocks and other objects, trying to balance them in improbable ways—and that evolved into the structure of the series.” - Veks Van Hillik

 

Veks’ homage to the Old Masters is immediately felt in the tone and depth of his work.  His renderings embrace the dramatic lighting and theatricality of baroque tradition with atmospheric backgrounds and rich yet gloomy colors. To enhance the effect, Veks works the surface of his canvases to mimic the textural cracking and char-like scarring one might see in ancient oil paintings, weathered by time. These moves make Veks’ work feel like ancient tomes of newly-discovered, long-forgotten truths. They present surrealism as paramount and carry the weight of memory, myth, and unbridled imagination with their ABSURD LOGIC.

 

Veks Van Hillik (French, b. 1988) is based in Toulouse in the South of France. Entirely self-taught, Veks became fascinated with ecology at a young age; he says the environment he grew up in, filled with nature, continues to shape his imagination today. A prolific mural artist throughout France, Veks began exhibiting with Arch Enemy Arts in 2014, and ABSURD LOGIC is his sixth solo feature with the gallery. 

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ABSURD LOGIC will be on view from June 21st - July 13th, 2025
Sold works will begin to ship the week starting July 20th, unless other rush shipping arrangements have been made. 

Items marked with a red dot have already been sold.

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