Axe Colours portrays icons on the shop shutters of Comerç Divers

Axe Colours (Adrià Bosch), a muralist known internationally for his hyperrealist portraits, paints 15 cultural and LGBTIQ+ icons on the shop shutters of Comerç Divers as part of the Persianes que fan barri project.

Axe Colours is the artist behind the shutters of the Xarxa de Comerç Divers, in the district of Eixample, within the Persianes que fan barri project: a street art intervention on 185 shops across Barcelona, organised by the Barcelona Creativity & Design Foundation with creative direction by Rebobinart.

Adrià Bosch, Axe Colours, is a street artist from Barcelona who specialises in large-format murals and graffiti. He is best known for his realistic, highly colourful portraits of popular-culture figures — actors, musicians, athletes and characters from TV series. Many of his works can be seen on the streets of Barcelona, and he has also worked with major institutions and events, such as FC Barcelona, on murals related to the club.

Axe Colours’ style: a gallery of icons on the street

The Comerç Divers series is a gallery of portraits of cultural icons and LGBTIQ+ figures. Axe Colours has portrayed Daniela Santiago as La Veneno, Margarita Xirgu, Federico García Lorca, Ventura Pons, RuPaul, Freddie Mercury, Marsha P. Johnson, Itziar Castro, Keith Haring, José Pérez Ocaña, Sonia Rescalvo, Gloria Fuertes, Maria Mercè Marçal, Terenci Moix and Frida Kahlo: fifteen faces that, shutter by shutter, weave a trail of collective memory through the neighbourhood, in dialogue with the spirit of the shop network.

Formally, Axe Colours almost always works in large-format portraiture: faces that fill the whole shutter, resolved in a semi-realistic, highly expressive language (soft brushwork, blended spray paint). The light is not naturalistic but built from strongly marked patches of colour — pinks, reds, oranges, whites, blues, violets and blacks — an almost pop effect that gives the portraits an intense, emotional presence.