Pharaildis Van den Broeck has always favored the image over the word, so even when he begins to use newspaper as his main support he carefully chooses which pages to use, intervening with painting to highlight photographs or titles (these too are always used for their iconic rather than textual value). In this work, symbols, protagonists and actions are merged into a syncopated story through images: like the famous clash between Zinédine Zidane and Marco Materazzi that shocked fans from all over the world, but also inspired the world of art.

In Arsenal - Liverpool the process of iconographic and symbolic synthesis of the composition cancels any reference to the specific action, restoring the concept of competition through the heraldic juxtaposition of the teams. Any dynamism is locked in a precise grid, that of the football field, within which the personifications of the teams stand out and no longer the participants in the game.

Newspaper is a changing material in itself, but Phara's use of it enhances its images, physical consistency and pictorial quality even more. In this 2013 work, the entire surface is covered with a dense texture of newspaper strips to create a uniform and vibrant pattern. From this field emerge symbolic figures made with the same material applied to create a low relief. It is one of the artist's most enigmatic works as it collects most of the elements present in his previous production in an ordered composition: ideograms of an alphabet or pawns on a chessboard ready for a game whose rules remain unknown.

In 1997 the artist was already familiar with large format painting. This work is emblematic of a passage of stairs; his recurring subject finds here a full sculptural presence. Not without a veil of irony Pharaildis Van den Broeck restores to the humble vegetable the encomyistic dignity of Baroque portraiture.

In 2009, Phara, parallel to the theme of football, takes up some themes that he had already dealt with in the nineties, combining them with symbols from popular culture. In this work, the usual onion is transformed into a greasy tree from which geometric gnomes hang . In the same period he returns to the use of the canvas experimenting with new painting techniques.

Landscape with onions is an example of synthesis of the pictorial experiments of previous years and of opening towards new research. The large-sized painting opens a window on a landscape that is only apparently traditional in which the rich palette of blues and greens manages to find a balance between the depth of the visual field and the decorative graphics of the details, between the two-dimensionality of the pictorial texture and the sculptural volume of the portrait subject. .

In this series of small plates painted between 1994 and 1995, Pharaildis Van den Broeck begins his analysis of the onion, a simple element of everyday life. The pictorial technique used recalls the Flemish tradition of still life.

The desire to constantly experiment with new techniques pushes Phara to combine the results of research on both acrylic painting and newspaper on canvas. In the works of 2013, newspapers are no longer chosen for the printed images they collect but because they allow them to introduce a three-dimensional component within the work. Cut into thin strips , the media ideally composes the body of the onion, the dense and decisive brushstrokes underline its structure and contours.

In this series of works from 2005, Phara uses as support the pages of Opwijks Leven, a weekly publication still widely read in the artist 's hometown . Body painting is used to highlight some keywords printed in the newspaper and to give them a visual form. In recent years, the artist has been experimenting with new techniques and languages to find his own expressive force .

Over the years, Phara's painting technique tends more and more towards a synthetic and biting expressiveness. The works of this period, like this one, are characterized by flat backgrounds, saturated colors, decisive and contrasting brushstrokes that reach graphic results reminiscent of woodcut.