An Explosion of Colour Instead of Dull Grey Concrete

This post is special. For us it’s not the norm to publish two unrelated street art posts, one after the other. Nor have we ever before published a whole gallery showing only one single street art project!

As with most street art we came to this one by pure chance. Funnily enough: we got lost driving around Ilha Santa Catarina, the island of Florianópolis . [Yes, Yasha always likes to say “We’re not lost – we have nowhere we have to be.” I like to disagree.] On that day we wanted to go to the south of the island, but we missed a turn due to road works and were heading north towards the city centre of Florianópolis instead.

Once I realised our mistake, I reset our GPS and had to do a U-turn a few hundred metres down the highway at a specially built turning bay. On our way back in the right direction we came to an overpass. Yasha noticed the street art below and pointed it out to me. Immediately, I looked for a way to get off the highway to stop and take photos.

As soon as I parked Berta and looked at the wall, I realised that we had found something special. This isn’t a small street art object – this is an extensive work in very vivid colours, stretching over more than hundred metres.

This is the *full* street art wall on this overpass in Florianópolis. Of course, on this scale details blur fairly quickly.

This is part of the street art wall – it gives a bit better impression.

And again, a narrower angle shot of the same wall – now you can make out more elements of this amazing street art project!

Within it you see what appear to be normal tags next to exquisite motifs of similar size – countless individual pieces flowing into each other to form one giant explosion of bright colours. Yet, at the same time, some sections stand out due to their very individual style.

Photo Gallery of the Street Art bienal design 2015 Project in Florianópolis, Brazil

Click thumbnails below for a larger images!

Once I started to walk along the wall, taking pictures of motifs that stood out, I realised that this work was far more complex than it appeared to be on first impression. There are elements connecting individual sections in such a way that you really have to look twice (or thrice).

For example, roughly in the middle you find a change from orange yellowish tones to blue; a fish in this part is half executed in orange-yellow, half in blue shades – even the way the fish is painted differs from one half to the other, although it’s clearly a connecting element.

You also see fish or birds forming part of faces. The faces are clearly there, the animals are also clearly visible…

After the faces of section 12 there is a bit of wall with the credits. To some people this list of street artists will mean a lot…

When I came to the furthest end of the wall I found a long ‘credit’ section, which explained

• the complexity of this street art project
• that a large group of artists had created it
• all of Florianopolis’ best known street artists had participated
• the overall quality and diversity of this street art project.

This wall, in a prominent place along the route from the airport into the city of Florianópolis, was created during the Bienal Brasileira de Design , an all-encompassing bi-annual design symposium which was held in Florianópolis in 2015.

Graffiti (alongside topics like graphic design, furniture, general 3D-design) was part of the symposium’s program. Unfortunately, with my non-existent Portuguese, I was unable to find out more about this particular street art project. If you are curious please follow the link or google yourself…

The supports of the overpass on the other side of where traffic moves under it. They are also covered in street art – each with two individual pieces (one each side). Here 5 of the 6 looking in direction of the city centre (the other one didn’t fit into the lens frame).

The left side of the wall under the overpass. Note the play with elements in the blue face on the right, where the face is part of the body of a fish with another fish forming the right eye.

This is the opposite side of the overpass, as seen from a road which doesn’t get much traffic. As you see, the grey concrete is still attracting some tagging and street art – just not in such an all-encompassing way.

Google maps location: -27:38.87489, -48:31.25313

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I won’t ask you what your favourite section of this StreetArt wall is – personally, I find this too difficult to decide.
But what do think of it in general?
Is it an enhancement of the urban landscape?
Do you think that this “explosion of colour instead of dull grey concrete” is an improvement on an otherwise ugly overpass?
Or do you find it a distraction, even an ‘eyesore’?

If this post inspires you somehow to visit Brazil, we recommend
Michael Palin‘s book ‘Brazil’ . This beautiful book will convince you to go! BRAZIL is an almost timeless book, with brilliant full-page photographs, which was produced alongside a multi-part BBC television series. Michael Palin describes personal impressions from several trips to Brazil, in his typically light and humorous style…
Find Michael Palin‘s ‘Brazil’ on AMAZON !
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