the street is our gallery

This weekend, muralists Cristian Blanxer and Sendys have renovated the lower front of the Arnau Theater in Barcelona with a piece inspired by one of the most relevant and historical figures of this place: Raquel Meller, who debuted at its stage on September 1911.

The artists have worked more than three days to create a tribute mural piece to the famous singer, chanteuse and actress that nowadays gives name to the square where the theater is located, and where there is a bronze statue of the actress holding a bouquet of violets. Precisely, the iconography of ‘La violetera’, one of the songs that took her to the top as a performer, occupies the central part of the piece. There are two portraits of Raquell Meller at both sides, and the violets are also the merging element.

Sendys – Photo Ⓒ Nicolas Corbel

Sendys learned to draw in the streets of Barcelona, where he began his career in the graffiti world back in 1988. He started painting in his neighbourhood, el Carmel, but his work fastly spread throughout the whole city. Following this self-taught path, his style has been evolving to colorful pieces that combine figure and text to transmit a message that connects with its surroundings, sometimes to make a tribute and sometimes to question it.

Cristian Blanxer – Photo Ⓒ Antoine Careil

Cristian Blanxer started working as a freelance illustrator in 2008 and, since then, his versatile spirit has led him to explore different styles and techniques. Great part of his work focuses on reaching out to the audience’s emotions through human actions.

This has been the fifth piece in Arnau Gallery, a project dedicated to spread urban art held in the Arnau Theater, a building with great historical and social value located in the very center of the city. Arnau Gallery is, in fact, the first open air urban art gallery in Barcelona, a project with an innovative approach that aims to bet on the creation of unique pieces through the collaborations of renowned artists.

Sendys and Cristian Blanxer working on their piece at Arnau Gallery – Photo © Antoine Careil

This space, with a 15×2 meter surface, took off on November 2016 with a piece by BTOY, inspired by the figure of the russian journalist Anna Politkóvskaia. The second one, by Kram and Cisco KSL, with the personification of different animals inspired by the daylife of the neighbourhood. Italian Filippo Minelli did the third one, a conceptual piece that played with the representation of the politic propaganda. The fourth intervention was the one by Enric Sant and GR170, two renowned members of the Mixed Media Crew.

Piece by Enric Sant and GR170 – Photo Ⓒ Antoine Careil

Piece by BTOY – Photo Ⓒ Lluís Olivé

Piece by Kram and CISCO KSL – Photo Ⓒ Fernando Alcalá

Piece by Filippo Minelli – Photo Ⓒ Filippo Minelli

Arnau Gallery is a project driven by two entities with a long trajectory in the field of artistic project management in the public space: Street Art Barcelona and Difusor (organizator of urban art festival Open Walls Conference); and counts with the support of Montana Colors. This iniciative aims to promote urban contemporary art in Barcelona in a complementary space to the free access walls that already exist in the city, and without the long term vocation of the usual big size mural pieces. Moreover, this innovative project adds its own reivindicative approach, linking with the activities by Platform Get Arnau Theater Back, who work for the recuperation of this space as cultural equipment for the neighbourhood and the city.