Graffiti has often received a bad rap, being seen as representing the underbelly of society. There exists, however, a difference between well thought out pieces of public street art and simple vandalism and tagging. When I was on academic exchange in Seville, Spain, an assignment in my photography class was to go out and capture “arte urbano.” In turn, I started paying attention to a different side of the city that I hadn’t previously given much thought, and my opinion about public art began to change. Please enjoy this collection of some of my favorite pieces of public art in Seville!
Art Elements
There are numerous different street art instillations in this photo, so I will be focusing my analysis on the mural of the sleeping child, which was painted by a famous Spanish street artist, Raúl Ruiz, more commonly known as “El niño de las pinturas” or simply “El niño.” El niño’s use of color in the face of the child is truly remarkable. He uses colors not typically associated with skin tone, such as purple, green, and blue. Throughout the piece, he wisely uses lighter tones and colors to create the illusion of light and shadow. This gives the painting a more three-dimensional feel. One of the most important elements of this mural is its placement. It is located on the side of a busy bus station, meaning that it is seen by thousands of people every day.
Plaza de Armas
This mural was commissioned by the city council of Seville for placement at the Plaza de Armas bus station. This area, which is along the Río Guadalquivir, is a designated place in the city where graffiti is legally allowed. Walking along the river, the concrete walls are filled with various pieces of street art with numerous different styles and themes.
Arte para todos
Arte para todos was an art initiative that came to Seville in the fall of 2010 with the intentions of livening up the residential area of Poligono San Pablo. Over 40 well known artists from more than 20 different countries flocked to Seville to donate their time to help facilitate the project. For a couple of weeks, artists consulted with the residents of the area in hopes of creating a cohesive and meaningful exhibit of pieces. The United Nations was also involved with the project as a part of working towards their Millenium Development Goals. Artists planned various pieces to convey positive messages about the global and local community. All of the following works were made possible through the project.
Art Elements
Another mural from the famous El niño. An orange color thought the mural helps tie the whole piece together, creating a sense of unity. Additionally, it is a warm color, conveying comfort and familiarity. Similar to his other work, El niño effectively uses lighter tones and colors in the child’s face to create the sense of light and shadow. As with all the paintings in this post, the placement of this piece is extremely important. As part of the Arte para todos project, this mural was aiming to help liven up an area of town that many considered to be home to people on the margin of society. By creating art in an area like this, El niño was helping to break social barriers.
El niño de las pinturas
El niño was born in Madrid, but grew up in Granada, attending school there for fine arts. Nearly all of his pieces are centered around a person, many of them being children and young people. About his art, El niño said, “El mundo está oscuro, ilumina tu parte.” In English, “The world is dark, iluminate your part.” I believe this captures the essence of what many street artists are striving to accomplish: simply add a bit of joy to the world. To see more of El niño’s work, click here.
Art Elements
The bright blues and greens give the painting an almost electric feel, adding to its sense of life and movement that is brought across from the position of the flamenco dress. I find red to be a fitting color of the dress. Flamenco dresses can be a variety of colors and patterns, however when I think of flamenco, I think of red. The artist uses various styles of lines in the ruffles of the dress to help show movement and life. I see this painting and can almost hear the clapping and flamenco music that she is dancing along to. Something I do think is interesting is that the mural includes both Spanish and English, but they do not say the same thing. The Spanish section basically says, “Today you are going to look forward, because you’ve been hurt in the past. A valiant woman, a smiling woman, look at how she moves. Today the perfect woman that they had been waiting for was born, the marked rules broken without shame. Today she put on heels to make her steps be heard.”
Cultural Importance
Although not from Spain, artist Veronica Werckmeister clearly thought it was important incorporate Spanish culture into her mural. Flamenco is an essential component of southern Spanish culture, especially in Sevilla. By choosing to paint a flamenco dancer, Werckmeister created a mural that the people in the neighborhood could relate to. Additionally, Werckmeister included the empowering poetic statements about women, adding a sense of activism to her work.
Art Elements
This mural contains bold colors and lines. This specific piece was along a concrete wall paralleling a sidewalk, so having the simple color scheme makes the painting easier to absorb in only a short glance, say by a person walking along the sidewalk. The artist does occasionally use lighter or darker colors to add accents in the piece and play at the sense of light or shadow. I think a main aspect in the artistry of this painting is in the message that the artist is trying to get across.
Environmental Message
Many of the works in the Arte para todos project carried an environmental message, and I perceive this as one of them. Southern Spain is an incredibly dry and arid place, meaning that droughts are fairly common. Perhaps Lalo was hoping to promote sensible and smart water consumption. This work could be interpreted as an environmental message on a larger scale, due to the inclusion of the Statue of Liberty. Public street art can serve as a powerful and practical form of spreading a multitude of messages, including topics like caring for our environment.
Art Elements
There are numerous horizontal and vertical lines set at right angles in each other in this mural, creating a geometric look. I believe this can help establish a “scientific” feel, which is something Eric Okdeh, the artist, was aiming at in this photo. Okdeh uses similar colors throughout the mural, creating a sense of cohesiveness. White is used in specific places to help create the illusion of light, for example on the cheekbone of the girl.
Inspiring the community
I look at this painting and I see an artist striving to inspire young people. In the mural we see a young scientist, surrounded by nature and other scientific themes. We are bombarded with a variety of advertisements every day that are all hoping to influence us into buying something, so it is a welcome change to see something that is simply encouraging us to the be best version of ourselves. We often hear about how important it is for young people to have role models and people to look up to. This can include real life people, or depictions like this, which help show the possibilities of what is attainable.
Art Elements
This is by far my favorite piece that I saw while strolling through Poligono San Pablo. The simplicity of the composition lets us focus on the woman and child as the one and only subject of the mural. The use of white and lighter tones throughout the mural effectively creates the illusion of a light source coming from the right hand side of the painting. Darker tones and lines are utilized to help create texture in the clothing of both the woman and the child. This mural was painted on the side of a building, but in kind of a weird location boxed in by other apartment buildings and was not visible from the street nor recieved much sunlight. I would have loved to see this mural placed in a more accessible location so that more people could have the opportunity to see it.
Sources of beauty
While it is great to look at something and be able to pull out some kind of positive messaging, like environmental or social activism, it is equally enticing to look at a piece of art and simply enjoy its beauty. I don’t know if the artist of this mural of the woman and child was hoping to convey any sort of social message, but when I look at this painting I am struck by its beauty. I feel the love between mother and child that is so dear to many us, I marvel at the craftsmanship of the work, I admire it in its totality. This is one of the most important aspects of street art – adding beauty and life into otherwise barren streets.
Check out this newscast about the project:
Citations
“Sevilla arte para todos” Laboratorio Q. (n.d) http://www.laboratorioq.com/global/laboratorioqsevilla/sevilla-arte-para-todos/
Okdeh, Eric. “Biomimico” Eric Okdeh. (n.d) http://www.ericokdeh.com/biomimico
Cotán, Luis. “Arte para todos” Diario de Sevilla. (18 March, 2011) https://www.diariodesevilla.es/artes_plasticas/Arte_0_461053951.html
“Historia” El niño de las pinturas. (2018) http://www.elninodelaspinturas.es/history.html
Malia's Explorations in Art 200X 
Great post! I enjoy street art as I believe that it reflects on how artistic a community of people are. I believe that the word “graffiti” has a negative connotation associated with it, and that street art is the more politically correct term.
I agree with everything you said in your blog post. Street art is such an underappreciated art form. It’s such a raw medium to display such art. It has a bad reputation, so when attached with a message, such as once to entice people to become more environmentally aware, it adds a gritty, serious undertone to the piece. It is very inspiring to be walking through a city and see a beautiful mural spanning across a huge concrete wall. Whether the art is conveying a message or simply put there to look pretty, it brightens up a bland slab of a concrete wall. I would be more enticed to visit places in Alaska if there were more street art to look at. Most concrete structures are boring in Alaska. It also doesn’t help that there isn’t much architecture within Alaska either. One of my favorite activities to do when traveling is to look around their downtown and find street art pieces like the ones you’ve shown. Thanks for sharing.
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Awesome post, didn’t expect to see any graffiti art but I’m glad it was represented. I used to care little about it but my best friend used to make some himself which has taught me to appreciate it more. What I loved the most was the piece from Arte para todos that was created along with the community’s input. It’s easy to appreciate art as it is, but creating it along with the help of your own community definitely makes it all the more special. These pieces remind me of what it’s like to walk through the streets of Mexico where murals like this are quite common. Great job!
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Your comment about the Mural by Matias, 2010, being hidden really stood out to me. It was somewhat hidden from both sunlight and people. My first thought was that it was intimate. It is a mother and her child sheltered from the view of many. It must have been an intimate feeling to have found it tucked away. To me, sometimes the hidden art has more of an impact than that on display.
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I enjoyed your post over “arte urbano,” and I bet your academic exchange in Spain was amazing! I believe there should be more art like this in the world not only does it add to the city’s culture, but a majority of the buildings that had this art would attract me to ensure I look at the building as I am driving by, maybe a marketing tool! Plaza de Armas was the mural that caught my attention the most, and I believe that it was because of El niño and the floating lanterns that are above the child’s head. I also agree with you that even though tagging and graffiti give this art a bad theme, the art is gorgeous, and deserves more credit.
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Yes, great post on graffiti! I like how they are drawn on big buildings, using lines, shapes, color, patterns, etc. All the art elements, including the light contrasts. The one with the Statue of Liberty and the fishing shows some freedom and culture within America. I like the other graffiti drawings also, which shows daily living and one with dance traditions.
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