El Tono: Exploring the World of Urban Art

After Chazme, Lump, Sainer and Sepe, Sam3 and Blu it’s now famous Spanish mural artist El Tono who painted two new mural artworks in Poland! El Tono, whose trademarks are wall paintings of abstract tuning forks, approves in that way my theory about Polish cities like Warsaw, Krakow or Szczecin becoming new hot-spots for street art in Europe. Also his comments show the wide support by the local citizens… The project was […] organized by the Vlepvnet foundation. Every year they invite local and international artists to work in the city. The building is located on Zlota street in the Wola neighborhood, close to the central station. Thanks to the help from the guys from vlepvnet, the volunteers and the support of the neighbors, we managed to finished the two murals in only seven days. (El Tono) ...

Recently I visited the Design Museum in London and stumble over an very interesting book, which unfortunately was totally new for me. Murals: Practiques, Murals, Contemporanies (2010) by the Joan Miró Foundation shows different aspects of the very interesting urban art form of mural painting! On about 140 colored pages, the book begin with the traditional work of different protagonists as the Soninke women of Mauritania and continues with the work of artists who generally intervene in public places, including Lothar Gotz (Germany), Scope One (Singapore), UTR Crew (Bosnia-Herzegovina), Brian Rea (USA), Nuria & Eltono (Spain and France) and others. ...

Although I kept my fingers crossed for the Netherlands yesterday, I had the idea to celebrate the Spanish football team as the new world champion by collecting a list of awesome graffiti and street artists from Spain. Because I’m not able to know every single urban artist by name and mother country, it’s o you to complete the list by adding comments or writing e-mails! Famous Urban Artists from Spain Sam3 - The mural artist paints walls around the world, thereby the size of the wall doesn’t matter. Some weeks ago, he painted together with other well-known artists a facade in Lisbon. (www.sam3.es) ...

A short while ago, Spanish street artist El Tono did another smart urban art experiment, which brings the street into the gallery! The guy, who is famous worldwide for his abstract street paintings, installed whitewashed glass panels in the city of Coruña. The idea behind was, that people who past by that white wall, should scratch into its surface and create in this way a unique street artwork. And his plan worked! ...

Urban interventions are - in addition to graffiti and classical street art - my main topic and I think the majority of you has also a partiality for it. For that reason, I will present you a new book, called “Urban Interventions - Personal Projects in Public Places”… “Evolving from graffiti and street art, urban interventions are the next generation of artwork to hit public space. Using any and all of the components that make up urban and rural landscapes, these mostly spatial interventions bring art to the masses. ...

I like the abstract character of the artworks by urban artists Nuria and El Tono! Both belong to the most famous street painters worldwide although or even because of their simple style with its great recognition value. El Tono and Nuria use tape and acrylic-paint for their artworks, which are at first view actually not more than colorful lines, but at the second or third view the spectator recognized the architectural influence. ...