Amazing murals directly from Poland (Szczecin) (guest post)

Once again some guest post from Poland, as I went there for a weekend. This time I just couldn't take my eyes off this murals... Both the technique and the valuable message form an amazing work of street art! I wouldn't mind to have a smaller copy at home...     

Unique, vivid details, sense of proportion and movement, which is so hard to capture correctly on such large surfaces are one of the biggest attitude of this murals in city of Szczecin. 

First one was created by the artist, originally from Wrocław city in Poland, named Cekas vel Ceka 100. The light, skinny, dancing-alike silhouette with a big, heavy, colourful and rich in detail head , hunting for a fly reminds me a bit a monster that we could watch in a movie Le labyrinthe de Pan. A duet of a grim reality from one side and a cruel world of fantasy from another, with a pinch of poetry. Breath-taking!

CEKA 100/CEKAS

CEKA 100/CEKAS

Both of these murals were created in 2011 from the initiative of Eco Jam Graffiti vol. 4, a part of the project "Projekt EGOS", which promotes environmental activities. Eco Jam Graffiti has the idea of aesthetic transformation of the the neglected, disturbing, dirty places, through the artistic interventions, so the could become friendly, eye-catching and "renovated". 

Mural presented below was created by three artists together LUMP(from Szczecin), CHAZME and SEPE (from Warsaw). The colours, the details and the concept are amazing. LUMP says: "Murals are an alternative for banners and disturbing city-lights. They destroy the visual centre. Street art is not the closed part of the gallery, where "you can watch, but don't touch". Urban art meets people, has a wide range and forces the viewer to change his perception of public space". 

"This painting (below) is part of the context of the city and enhances its diversity. At the same time it becomes its representative. The idea of this mural is to ask a question: to have or to be. If you don't perceive the real values, you lose the sense of existence" - adds Ceka100.

LUMP/CHAZME/SEPE

LUMP/CHAZME/SEPE

Another mural of these authors, turned into an animation to watch here. 

Concrete-brick jungle

Animals, after people, are one of the most gripping subject for the street artist. No wonder as what else could bring more life to the grey street than a wild animal? Serious, with a wink, grotesque, funny, scary or very sophisticated- Parisian jungle lives its own life in hundreds of ways.

Below, first two pictures present the art works of the artist called Bonom. Creating mostly in Paris and Brussels, Bonom likes to make us felling uneasy with his sprayed works, that occupy the highest parts of the buildings, like if they were "floating close to the sky". A nice article about Bonom you can find here. 

Below: boar on the spit. Scary, bit gory piece of art arranged around the technical ladder fixed on the wall. He uses very often this element of the building as an integral part of his graffiti. Very, very impressive...

Boar on the spit by Bonom

Rummaging in the web I found few short movies showing the way he works. How he climbs the high buildings to create his most remarkable graffiti and looks for some adrenaline at the same time... 

Gare au Gorrile - Street artist Bonom painting a gorilla in the center of Brussels

Belgian reportage about Bonom 

Bonom about being more than a street artist and criminalisation of the street art

Fish by Bonom

Monkeys by artists: Kouka and Ponz. 

Kouka

Ponz

Stencilled green jaguar, artist unknown.

City of Paris is full of little stencilled animals everywhere. Usually black sprayed, little fellows roam free, without an owner.

There's a group of animals that makes us smile and/or actually smile to us, too.

Smiling panda by Sheez

Dancing, a little bit satanic-like goat...Is it for fun or is there some message behind?

Little red fox carelessly sprayed in the 3rd district of Paris.

If we talk about the animals, we couldn't not mention about Codex Urbanus. The number of his bestiary is growing really fast. My previous post about him to be found here. 

Fig 76 - Saurus Cervus by Codex Urbanus

Fig 204 - Eliphas Axolotl by Codex Urbanus

Some animals are bored to be constantly exposed, so they simply descend the walls and go somewhere else, leaving the traces behind them. 

Seal by Burins

"Kraken - Je t'aime", "Kraken - I love you", artist unknown, is to be found near the Republique in Paris. If someone is interested to find out more about this legendary giant squid, or is in love with it as well, can read more about it on Wikipedia. 

Kraken, je t'aime - Kraken I love you

The last presented group of animals is treated in a very artistic way with a kind of wildness preserved, which is hard to see at first glimpse, but we feel it very well. There are the beautiful compositions taking the final form of the animals, as well as the animals that are more or less "anthropomorphised". Picture below, forming a tiger's head, probably is made by an artist called Dourone, but I'm not entirely sure.

Another tiger made by Fred le Chevalier, a Parisian favorite as a street artist. Actually, Fred's tiger is transformed to represent a daemon. More about him and his numerous characters created with the pinch of onirism to be found in my previous post about Fred le Chevalier.

And here the brick jungle ends.