Virut

--> Also see our NEWS page to see photo's of his solo exhibition with us this year.

Virut (Bangkok 1980) begins his creative process online, where he scans through thousands and thousands of images that we are all bombarded with every day. However, he is not looking for faces that are neither beautiful nor famous, he is looking for emotions. “I believe this is what is important in art: emotions. So I just look for images that evoke emotions, as soon as I find them I start sketching. “

How quickly he succeeds in turning a photo that catches his eye into a dazzling collage depends very much on… luck. If he quickly finds the necessary raw materials, it can be ready in a few days, but it can also take a whole month. That's because the blocks of color and texture he uses to compose his collages come from stacks of old colorful magazines he keeps at home and buys from thrift stores. “It's easier when you use paint and mix colors on a palette, you have control over color and time. But with collages it's more complicated,” he explains. “Sometimes it takes me a long time to find the right color in the magazines I leaf through.”

And he has to flip through hundreds, even thousands of magazines to find what he's looking for, a lengthy and tedious process. But in the two years since he started experimenting with the collage technique, he's learned a lot. First, he no longer paid attention to the contents of the magazines, but now sees them only as a source of intense colors and textures. Second, he discovered which publications are generally the best source of quality material: “I use a lot of porn magazines because I can find a lot of smooth, nicely colored skin there. Fashion magazines also work well,” he explains.

Whatever the source material, the final product of Virut's efforts is a far cry from the master copies. Small pieces of colorful paper are carefully layered side by side to produce a large portrait – each different, each unique but all full of emotion. The original image disappears but the feeling remains. “I just borrow the mood of the photos,” says Virut.

And like his first, minimalist paintings, those huge collages are a hit with art collectors. Virut's pieces hang on the walls of art galleries and private homes all over the world, from the Netherlands to the US, from France to Hong Kong, China, India, Malaysia... the list goes on. And with his art in all those places, admired by so many people, Virut fulfills his most important wish as an artist: immortality. “If I die, my art will not die with me. This will be a success for me.”