Wall Lab by Inventura Studio, Zaick, Maru Hrz, Eloise Gillow
Barcelona
15.11.2020
In mid-November, Rebobinart held the production of a professional initiative to make visible the local talent framed within the Wallspot platform: the Wall lab, a project aimed at artistic experimentation in public spaces based on creations of long-lasting murals on walls of different formats.
The artist’s selection was made through an open call for the users of Wallspot platform, and we chose four of them that colored the wall located in Carrer del Clot 228. This edition, in particular, had a free subject. The participants were Lucas Amaral (Inventura Studio), an artist originally from Brazil in constant formation and artistic experimentation, Eloise Gillow, who four years ago came from England to study realistic painting in Barcelona, Maru Hrz, a tattoo artist and illustrator and Zaick, an artist focused on graffiti. Each of them captured a different style: from Zaick’s more Old School graffiti, Maru and Inventura’s illustrations and figuration to Eloise’s hyper-realistic style.
Each intervention was documented through a video interview to disseminate the artists’ work.
Rebobinart was in charge of giving the participants artistic fees, the material, and the necessary infrastructure to be able to carry out their work.
This event has been held on thanks to the collaboration of Districte Sant Andreu and Montana Colors. It was a project with a very satisfactory process and results that helped, in addition to building ties between the artists, to revitalize the urban space where the intervention was carried out.
In the video, the four artists on the Wall Lab wall. Maru comes from tattooing, graffiti and illustration and talks about «the speed of time»; Zaick has painted since '93 and explains his dog, which began as a bombing icon; Eloise Gillow paints realism learnt at an academy in Barcelona; and Lucas Amaral (Inventura Estudio) makes «a mural about murals», because murals are ephemeral art.
Video transcript (translated from Spanish)5 min 18 s
—Hi, I'm Maru, I'm a tattoo artist, illustrator and muralist. I started painting graffiti when I was 16 and began to get a bit more interested in painting murals, in getting to know that whole world; and it wasn't until I got to Barcelona, about six years ago, that I got into painting more illustration, more the sort of thing I do. My style is basically organic figures, animals, objects, which bring together the three worlds I come from: tattooing, graffiti, illustration. I try to depict very mundane, very simple things that have a composition and a colour range with that coherence. The wall represents something of the speed of time, which is a subject that concerns me quite a lot, and in this case especially because of this year we have been living through, which has been fairly intense and has had important turning points for all of us: in the end you have to take some control of the moment and of time.
—I'm Zaick, I have painted graffiti since 1993, without stopping since '99-2000. I have been through several phases over these years, a bit of everything, and now I am making murals with letters, characters, plenty of colour. I have developed the logo, I do it in wildstyle. What I have painted here is basically my logo, my signature: people know me mainly for this dog, which started out as a bombing icon. I designed it to be done in two or three minutes and I have kept developing it: I have connected it, deformed it, added arrows. On top of that I add graffiti elements like cans, rollers, caps; chain-link fencing is also quite characteristic in the graffiti world.
—I'm a visual artist from the United Kingdom. I started painting at an academy of realist drawing and painting in Barcelona, and through that I met people who painted murals in the street and I started painting on Wallspot's legal walls. I paint in a realist style, with the techniques I learnt at the academy in Barcelona. My work is about the connection between human beings and nature, and also about those moments of pause in life, about going a bit more slowly and being grateful for and enjoying life.
—I'm Lucas Amaral, I come from Brazil, and Inventura Estudio is my artistic project. I always create an imaginary universe, but always inspired by reality; and I think the style is quite influenced by screenprinting, which is the technique I started with. I use a reduced palette, black always last; there is also always a search for volume that comes from sculpture, which is something I have done since I was a child. I think the style blends all the techniques I usually work in. This is part of a series I have been making about the ephemeral: it is a mural about murals, because murals are ephemeral art. I also think it is an invitation for people to look at the city more, to occupy public spaces, and for more people to go out and paint.
Video transcript, edited for reading: repetitions and verbal fillers have been removed, the text has been punctuated and speakers are identified.
