Victor Verhelst

Victor Verhelst is a Belgian visual artist operating at the intersection of digital media, spatial design, and material innovation. Rooted in the ongoing digital universe of 'Trippy Vegas'—a self-expanding virtual metropolis—his autonomous practice translates digital canvases into tangible, physical mediums. Verhelst's aesthetics are defined by the distortion and juxtaposition of 2D and 3D image planes, resulting in a distinct dialogue between pre-made digital imagery and traditional tactility, spanning risography, large-scale textile, and interactive gaming technologies.

At the end of June 2020, he left the 'Les Monseigneurs' collective, of which he was a co-founder, to pursue his own course. Since then, Verhelst has worked on projects for PUBLIEK PARK by Young Friends v/h S.M.A.K. (Ghent), record label stroom.tv (Ostend), Kiosk Radio (Brussels), Permekemuseum (Jabbeke), Europalia, Toneelhuis, CORE Festival, Us By Night, 019, Kunsthal Gent, Kunsthal Mechelen, and Design Museum Gent, among others.
Deeply committed to local industry and craftsmanship, Verhelst frequently collaborates with regional manufacturers, as demonstrated by his textile installation developed with Fedustria for the WONDER Creativity Festival. His multidisciplinary approach bridges the gap between contemporary art, commercial innovation, and public space, having executed projects for prominent cultural institutions alongside commissions for corporate partners like Volvo and spatial integration projects for the Dutch Government Architect (Rijksbouwmeester).

Verhelst’s work has garnered significant national and international acclaim. He was awarded the public prize for 'Young Belgian Talent' at the Sabato Design Awards, and received a bronze accolade at the Henry van de Velde Awards 2026 for his debut publication, which has also received multiple international recognitions in graphic design competitions. Expanding his footprint in the public realm, Verhelst will unveil a permanent site-specific artwork for the reopening of the Design Museum Gent in the autumn of 2026.

In this lecture, Victor Verhelst explores the thin line between autonomous art and applied graphic design, arguing that the two should never be separated. Rather than treating client commissions and personal artistic work as opposing fields, he shows how they constantly feed and strengthen each other. Viewing his studio as both a kitchen and an experimental lab, Verhelst works like a chef mixing raw ingredients. He samples freely across analog and digital tools, layering physical scans and Risograph textures with 3D rendering and artificial intelligence. By embracing curiosity and playful cross-contamination over rigid rules, he transforms unexpected collisions into entirely new visual languages. Yet this open-ended experimentation is also an urgent critique of the contemporary creative industry. Verhelst addresses a field facing an identity crisis: an ecosystem that strips projects of personality by forcing them into safe, superficial "styles" and generic templates. In an era dominated by corporate homogeneity and visual franchises, this talk is a defense of messy individuality and authentic authorship. A clear refusal to believe in chains, and a call to put the human soul back at the core of image-making.