The largest mural in Europe by Pantonio / Galerie Itinerrance

In June this year, Pantonio (Antonio Correia), Portuguese artist, created the highest, as far, mural in Europe. Pantonio has always been the part of artistic exhibitions, urban art festivals and even called once to go to China to design a giant mural, consisted of animals culturally relevant to China (more details and photos here). 

The animals and characters designed like if they were the photography's negatives, by use of the very flexible and soft lines, presented in motion that resembles the current of the river, are "swimming" on the walls. Sometimes lazy, sometimes more lively, Pantonio's incredibly soft compositions magnetize our eyes. Minimalist colours are the must. White, blue and black, sometimes pinch of red or yellow, to not get lost in this labyrinth of silhouettes... 

Whirlwind of the fish - Pantonio

This largest mural in Europe, was unveiled in 13th district in Paris, on Thursday 19 June 2014. On the website of Galerie Itinerrance, which is the official patronage of this urban series of paintings, we can find few informations about it. Namely, Pantonio was working on this fresco one month long and it has (the wall of the building actually) 66 meters high and 15 meters wide.

Whirlwind of the fish - Pantonio

Whirlwind of the fish - Pantonio

There's a documentary book by Jerome Thomas "Sky is the Limit, the painters of the extreme", where we can find this and much more other photos about "making-of". 

Whirlwind of the fish - Pantonio

Just next to it, on another building, there's a huge mural done under the patronage of Galery Itinerrance as well, ordered by the Town Hall of the 13th district of Paris. 

Stewearth (I already did a post about him) is the artist, who is often inspired by Japanese culture and even (if we can say so) invented his own world, populated by birds, fish, samurai etc... 

Pantonio whirlwind and Stewearth's Blue Heron

Wall's surface of 52 per 14 meters, 30 litres of paint, 100 aerosol cans and 60 hours of work to create this giant Blue Heron...

Blue heron by Stewearth

Blue heron by Stewearth

What will be the next mighty animal to inhabit on of the walls in this district?

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. 

Expressions of the city - faces of Paris

Probably it doesn't exist, the more interesting subject for artist than a human face (except entire human body of course). Why? Well, what could be more expressive? Moreover, the street artists want to catch our attention much more than the other artists do, and nothing is more intriguing and eye-catching than a wall, that we're just passing. Especially, when it has its own proper eyes and observing us at the very moment...

Let's start with the most famous street-face of Paris. Just next to the Pompidou Center and occupying an entire wall, there's an art piece made by the "father" of street art - Jef Aerosol. As we can read in Wikipedia: Aérosol (French stencil graffiti artist born in 1957 in Nantes) is represented by several galleries in France and abroad. He made the cover and gave its name to the first book ever published about street stencils: "Vite Fait, Bien Fait". His trademark is the little red arrow, which appears on each and every work of him. Nobody really knows to what it refers. To reveal by everybody by his own. 

Jef Aerosol

This "lovely" face of Jack Nicholson ( The Shining movie, 1980)  was taken as a subject for the work of the young artist Zona Yarost. The artist's comment for this stencil is: "La salle de bain est libre?" ("The bathroom is free?"). As far I noticed that Zona likes to "pick up" the topic that are somewhat connected with war, violence, macabre etc...

Zona Yarost

Next photo shows two different works from two different artists. First one, unknown, is playing with the words: "STREET TARTE" (which refers to "STREET ART"). Whilst it's neither most subtle nor most complicated play on words, another artist, Petrus von Tricht, allows himself to comment it with his own paste-up, saying: " un homme banal" ("an ordinary man"). Petrus von Tricht likes to use the walls as a sort of common dialog between the artists, but there will be another post about him. 

Unknows artist and Petrus von Tricht

LomoZano has worked on a lot of faces already, but this little series presented below, illustrates Parisian women together with different fashion (particular for different times), general moods of it,  etc... More or less elaborated works, thus I think it would be better to produce less and focus more on the quality of it.

Parisienne pleine d'amour (Parisian woman full of love)

Lomo Zano

Parisienne oui! J'aime les anness 30 (Parisienne, yes! I like the 30s)

Parisienne melancolique (Melancholic parisienne)

Lomo Zano

Parisienne gourmande (Gourmand/greedy parisienne)

Parisienne reveuse (Dreamy parisienne)

Lomo Zano

Clown face. Artist unknown, though it didn't appear in one place but in a few already. Maybe the artist will unveil his name soon.

Unknown artist

This unbelievable expressive face was done by an unknown (as far) artist, but at least I managed to find who's face is it. It belongs to the French comedian, actor and political activist Dieudonné M'bala M'bala (wikipedia). If somebody is interested, here you can buy the tickets for his next "show".

Unknown artist

I left my two favourites for the very end. Fred le Chevalier and Madame. Fred's character, the little boy with a bird in his hand, says this time: "J'habite un maison en mai" - "I live in a house in Mai". Fred being poetic, like always.

Fred le Chevalier

Madame's collage presented below, I found completely by chance, behind some trash, tree and cardboard...We can see little vignette-like saying "Les secrets culinaires de Madame" (Madame's culinary secrets), which announces (probably) the whole series of those "culinary" paste-ups.

Madame Mustache

The rest says: "La cuisine c'est bien meilleur quand c'est relevé". It's a bit hard to translate this French phrase literally, but more less it goes: "Cooking/cuisine is much better, when it's sublime/lofty". 

Madame Mustache

Miam miam!

Murals

It's hard to find in Paris one big wall, which could be entirely covered with street art murals and/or which one could cover with those, before having the problems with police... For that the "le M.U.R." was invented. MUR, translating from French, means WALL, but in fact it's a shortcut of: Association le Modulable, Urbain, Reactif. This way there are two nice concepts in one, because back to the meaning of shortcut (mur = wall), everything here is about one big wall, located between the streets Oberkampf and St Maur in Paris.

M.U.R. (founded in 2003 by artist Jean Faucheur and many others) is giving the street artists, urban artists ect., regular opportunity of pasting up/painting/performing their own works on this surface of 3m x 8m. It was intention to create a link between the district and art. Street art.

Le M.U.R. - Tania Mouraud

This time, the day I was taking the photos, there was presented the work of Parisian artist Tania Mouraud. More about her and her work we can read on website/wikipedia/twitter. 

Le M.U.R. - Tania Mouraud

Then I was strolling a bit more around, and I found this family of wolves and one man, who screams: "Aime ton voisin", which means "Like your neighbor" (you should like your neighbor). I guess somebody made fun of it soon after and added those funny bodies to each and every head, so it's not scary anymore. There's kind of artist's sign, but still I don't know the name.

Just across the street a two-walls-mural was made by different artists. The variation of different creatures and styles makes it hard to focus on any of it, but for sure there's a long story, both literally and figuratively, behind it. Anyway, in general, I find it nice to look at. 

Next mural was made by French artist Lucile Saurel. A combination of people, animal, movement, instruments etc. presents quite interesting picture. As she explains on her website: birds, people, flowers, they all form a landscape - elusive and always in motion.

And for the end, one of my favourite: Fred le Chevalier. This mural was made especially for this little semi-public garden in 18th district in Paris. As we can see, the main characters hold the flower pots, so it wasn't random (the garden is about the flowers). There are also the characters with suns. Maybe it represents the seasons (but they are only three...)? And the big demons are transformed this time into kind of trees, to close this "garden composition".

Only this little boy, standing aside seems to be mysterious. Maybe he is a Little Prince waiting for his rose to bloom?