BIG WAALLS by Pedro Porto
Barcelona
09.02.2015
Big Waalls is a project developed by Rebobinart which offers artists a set of medium and large format walls, so that they can capture and perform their works. Rebobinart provides all the necessary tools and spaces to artists, in order to open a circuit of walls in the city of Barcelona, after the hard restrictions experienced by street art in 2006 with the implementation of the new ordinance of citizenship. On this occasion, the artist Pedro Porto performed a large mural in Poblenou, Barcelona.
In the video, Pedro Porto, from Rio de Janeiro, explains that he started painting at fourteen copying the graffiti on an album cover, when in Brazil «there was no Montana: there was only Colorgin, a spray for painting cars». He talks about his black character, the influence of African culture, and why he prefers people to draw their own conclusions.
The video in text (abridged) (translated from Spanish)2 min 36 s
I am Pedro Porto, I'm from Brazil, from Rio de Janeiro. I have been a graffiti writer since 2000, from the time I was a schoolboy: I was fourteen. Graffiti started when I won a Limp Bizkit album that had a lot of graffiti on it; so I started doing that kind of design, I started using paper and then we started buying spray cans to go out into the streets.
There was no Montana in Brazil: there was only Colorgin, a spray that now has an urban art line, but which back then was more like a spray for painting cars.
Barcelona is a lot like Rio where the beach is concerned, and here you have a very active cultural life; I think Catalonia matters a great deal artistically.
I think my aim now is a bit more aesthetic, you know? I want to make something beautiful, with lots of colours. I also have my drawings, my artistic work as a painter, as an artist, where there are stronger elements and I often use only black and white; but in graffiti I like to make something aesthetic. I use my black character, which represents the influence of the African culture I have in Brazil, and I represent freedom. I can do snakes too. I look for elements that have meanings for me, but I also want people to draw their own conclusions: I don't like to talk so much about the philosophy, because my philosophy is pretty crazy, you know?
Abridged version: direct quotes are kept; repetitions, overlapping speech and passages unrelated to the project are left out.
