A Mon Devane oyster
A couple of weeks ago, one of the walls of a building in the **Coia de Vigo neighborhood**, dawned with a giant blue face. Is about Isabel , a oyster from the city. The last oyster bag, in fact. Thus, the artist ** Mon Devane ** pays homage to a profession on the way to extinction, that of those women who sold oysters in the famous Mercado da Pedra de Vigo.
“She has been selling oysters all her life, as her mother already did, and before her her grandmother. I remember when I was very young going with my parents to La Piedra and seeing how my father asked one of these ladies for a portion of oysters, while my mother bought a winston punt . This is my particular tribute to these working women who have been part of the vig's story or and that many of us remember with affection and longing”. This is how the artist from Ourense presented his work on social networks, tenor of the Vigo Cidade de Cor urban art festival.
The artist who portrays the typical characters of Galicia (and the world)
Of color (color), yes, but always blue . Blues and shades of green are Mon Devane's specialty. A friend told him that they are a mixture of the blue of the ocean and the green of the mountains of Galicia ; however, he humbly states that simply he feels comfortable working between pale blue and green palettes , and that monochromatism allows him to detail the work to the maximum focusing on detail and drawing of the shapes.
But Isabel is not the only woman portrayed in this signature indigo tone of Mon's works. She also embodied a peasant, to Remedios, in Puxedo.
And even, he changed Community to portray an anonymous "campurriana" in a building in the Cantabrian city of Reinosa, forming part of the street art project of Upright Gallery .
With this beautiful woman, dressed in the traditional costume of the region of Campoo-The Valleys , intends "that customs and traditional folklore are not lost, passing because the youngest inherit it and practice it with pride".
Also the blue men are part of the universe of ourensano . A year ago, he changed the urban landscape of Vigo with two 'vellos' drinking in a 'wine trough ', an act so common in those lands, so from the Galician collective imagination , so prototypical, that anyone who passed through the Tomas Paredes Street could remember his father, his grandfather, or the men of the field , resting from a hard day in the field or at sea, behind a bar counter sipping a thick Barrantes wine from his cradle.
wine cellars
“For me it is important to highlight professions, trades or simply traditions of the past . It is part of our origin and something that makes us who we are”, Mon Devane tells Traveler.es.
“I guess it may have influenced that we are the generation that has experienced the leap from analog to digital. We are aware of the past and we know that things did not go so fast before and we value work and effort, not the immediacy and instantaneousness of everything that surrounds us now”.
Beyond the Galician rituals and traditional trades, Mon Devane has also kept an eye on celebrities.
Morris, or 'Meu Pai'
Such is the case of the actor Antonio Duran (known to all as 'Morris') in his role as rude Charlín in the series farina . In the Travesía de Vigo (hometown of the actor), the strong and serious face of Morris playing 'Meu pai' It caused quite a stir in the city.
He too mural of Chiquito de la Calzada , which Mon Devane finished off in Torrejón shortly after the humorist's death with the aim of illustrating the cover of one of the magazine's issues man on the moon.
Or the wink that the artist made to the cinema when drawing to the boy Salvatore from Cinema Paradiso , ojiplático before the frames of the cinema film in his hands. “There is some appreciation and enhancement of popular culture. We are all marked by what we see or experience. Pure folklore. There are a few that I want to portray but they will fall little by little. I prefer to go doing them than saying it, I'm always open to suggestions though! ”, comments Mon Devane.
From making 'tags' in old abandoned factories and barracks (“three simple letters filled in silver and traced with black spray”, in his words), to considering what new character of popular culture to perpetuate in a mural.
Mon drawing Morris
This professional graffiti artist does not consider himself purely vindictive, "distracting a person from his problems and concerns for a while through a painted, aesthetic and well-executed image on the street It seems like an achievement to me."
And if he has learned anything in all these years leaving the faces of characters from popular culture and local folklore, it is that there are many bare murals, walls and constructions , waiting for an opportunity to revive them: "I don't know which way to go, but the vast majority of citizens they prefer the after to the before a wall is painted , so I suppose it will be a matter of time before there are more and more”. I wish.