Viki Geunes and TABASCO® join forces for the exclusive cover of the book Zilte

Viki’s Passion is a portrait, a family story, and a brand image all in one. Carlo van Tichelen starts from an almost caricatural intensity: a man literally seized by flavor. The closed eyes, the sweat on his brow, and the fiery breath turn TABASCO® not into a product that Viki is holding, but into an experience that flows through him.

‍

This exaggeration is intentional. With a touch of AI, a generous scoop of Photoshop, and printing techniques that give the surface a tangible relief, an image is created that balances between painting, illustration, and contemporary digital visual culture. The technology does not try to remain invisible here. On the contrary: it becomes part of the visual language.

‍

The almost liquid skin, the sharp accents, and the flying peppers give the work the energy of advertising, while the relief pulls it back out of the fleeting digital realm and literally adds substance to it. The result is a work that is simultaneously playful, expressive, and distinctly contemporary.

‍

More than a brand image

‍

But behind that visual humor lies a more fundamental story. Viki’s Passion is about the strong intertwining of family and brand.

‍

After all, TABASCO® is more than just a recognizable bottle or a specific flavor. It is a brand whose identity, continuity, and reputation have been linked to a family history for generations. This gives the bottle in the portrait almost the significance of an heirloom. It is held the way one holds something that one not only owns, but also passes on.

‍

The world of Viki Geunes is also strongly connected to family and craftsmanship. His restaurant Zilte has grown into a culinary benchmark where quality and passion take center stage.

‍

The heat serves as a beautiful metaphor here. Passion is not soft or non-committal. It burns, it leaves traces, it demands commitment. This is precisely where the work touches on an interesting truth about family brands: when person, family, and business become strongly intertwined, a brand becomes more than commerce. It becomes identity.

‍

From artwork to special book cover

‍

Viki’s Passion was created as a special cover for Zilte, the culinary book by three-star chef Viki Geunes. The artwork was realized in collaboration with entrepreneur Wim Heylen, who, through Heylen Group and Products and Brands Group, is closely linked to TABASCO® in Belgium.

‍

For a special edition, about 200 copies of the book were fitted with the art cover. Each copy was individually signed by Carlo van Tichelen and gifted to contacts within Wim Heylen’s network.

‍

In this way, a work of art became a carrier of a story about gastronomy, entrepreneurship, family, and a brand that has held its own place in the culinary world for generations.

‍

With a wink, Viki’s Passion shows how a brand ultimately becomes strongest when it is not just on packaging, but seems to flow almost through the veins of those who carry it.

‍