vermibus

Born in 1987 in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, Vermibus began writing graffiti in his early teens.
In 2003 he moved to Madrid, where he researched different media and met the members of TGLQV? (Te Gusta Lo Que Ves? – Do You Like What You See?) Collective met, who at the time were known for their stencils and anti-advertising. Subsequently, he began to work for an advertising agency as an illustrator, and later, as a photographer.

Now based in Berlin, the artist and activist uses the public space as a channel to criticize,

in an innovative way, the aesthetic value of the consumer society and its cruel dehumanization which takes away a person’s identity to replace it by the one of the brand.

Vermibus collects advertising posters from the streets and uses them in his studio as the basic material for his work.

Using solvent, he brushes away the model’s faces and skin appearing in the posters as well as any brand logos. Once the transformation is complete, he takes the adverts back into their original context, hijacking the publicity, and its purpose.

From the smoothing of facial skin, over the reduction of eye bags and wrinkles erasure, to enlargement of eyes and lips, “photoshopping” the human body to “perfection” has become the norm in advertising.

Through the presentation of this idealized view of the human body, advertisers seek to persuade customers to buy their products, essentially promising a better life. Beauty has become synonym of success and happiness, and even if the average person realizes that this premise is genuinely false, it keeps on being socially accepted and is followed by the vast majority.

Vermibus has developed a unique practice centered around the critique of contemporary beauty standards. He comments on the attempts of advertisement and consumer society in general that aim to take away individual identities only to replace them by the one of a certain brand.

This artist bases his practice on targeting the depersonalizing effects of advertising, which he negates by exaggerating them. He removes official poster ads from the public space and alters them in his studio by applying chemical solvents to the image. He dissolves the face and flesh of the models appearing in the campaigns, smudges and erases brand logos, and then returns the resignified ads into their original context.

Public space is essential to the message of Vermibus’ work. This is where his art begins and ends.

work