A2Zeta paints the shop shutters of Barnavasi

A2Zeta, the duo of Martí and Jan, paints the shop shutters of Barnavasi as part of the Persianes que fan barri project.

A2Zeta is the duo of Martí Huguet and Jan Altadill —who signs as Jan Zefor—, painting commissioned murals and graffiti since 2012. They work from Barcelona, with bases in the Camp de Tarragona and the Alt Empordà too, and have painted everything: façades, interiors, shutters, vehicles and floors.

The duo signs the shutters of 17 shops in Barnavasi, the Sant Gervasi retail hub in the Sarrià-Sant Gervasi district, as part of Persianes que fan barri: a street art intervention on 185 shops across Barcelona, organised by the Barcelona Creativity & Design Foundation with creative direction by Rebobinart.

A2Zeta’s style: each shop’s trade, painted large

The Barnavasi series starts from a very direct idea: every shop has an object, a gesture or a product that defines it, and A2Zeta paints it at the scale of a shutter. For the Impala group, motorbikes: a classic racer with its rider in black and white, a Honda sports bike at the workshop on Avenir street and a rider leaning into a bend on Calvet street. For the hardware stores, tools: a hand holding a drill at Moix, a wooden toolbox at Peña. Two blazers on hangers at Tintoreria Torres, two pairs of pyjamas at Llenceria Dolors Codina, scissors and a comb at the FAON barber’s, a grilled steak at Bovinum, a ring being soldered with a torch at Enric Joier and a cup with latte art at the Onyva on Amigó street.

The language is painterly realism: volume built with gradients, the gleam of chrome on the bikes, the blue flame of the torch, the foam on the coffee. But all that realism sits on a graphic background repeated across the 17 shutters: blocks and bands of red, navy, grey and off-white, a grid that reads as a window and a large white curve sweeping across the shutter. The image changes at every door; the background makes the series recognisable from one end of the neighbourhood to the other.

There are portraits too: the curly-haired woman at Vallhonrat Perruquers, the young woman with headphones and a takeaway coffee at the Onyva on Ciutat de Balaguer, the figure in a red hat at the Blauceldona fashion boutique. And three pieces go their own way: the turquoise beach with a red sun at LAISLA, the still life of quince, cabbage and melon at Antiguedades Pasquín and the letters tumbling over coloured bands at the Oasi de Lletres bookshop.