BIG WAALLS by Penao

Penao—visual artist Albert Penado, who specializes in set design and muralism—turned a Poblenou façade into a giant face in May 2014 as part of the Big Waalls pilot project. The two upper windows serve as eyes, the sides of the building as ears, and an open mouth with clearly visible teeth takes up the lower part. The colors come so close to those of the old brick that, from a distance, it looks as if the house had always had this face.

Barcelona.cat’s report on the pilot project singled it out as a work that plays with perspective, on one side of the same lot where Xupet Negre and Chanoir were painting the central wall. Over the years, the façade has become Penao’s most remembered work in Poblenou.

Penao takes his drawing from paper to wall and has painted murals in Barcelona, India, Indonesia and South Korea. He has worked with Rebobinart several times since: Un oasis a la ciutat, in Castelldefels, and, in 2026, the shutters of 17 shops in Les Corts as part of Persianes que fan barri, with children’s drawings on hyperrealistic paper.

Big Waalls was a Rebobinart pilot project to secure large-format walls for artists who often painted on Murs Lliures, with complete freedom and works meant to last a year. In Poblenou it required 200 liters of paint, 700 spray cans and a 13-meter crane, and it is one of the forerunners of the artistic murals that Rebobinart produces today.

Credits. Project: Big Waalls, by Rebobinart (pilot project) · Artist: Penao (Albert Penado) · Location and date: Poblenou, Barcelona, May 2014