barcelona street art

It really is true that the best things come to those who wait. We’ve been sitting outside the gallery for some weeks waiting for Ruben to drop off some works and finally he delivered!

WHO IS RUBEN?

in his own words (and one of the best bios i’ve ever read):

I’m Ruben Sanchez. Born and raised in Madrid, Spain (1979)
In 1993 I was kidnapped while I was drawing on my text books at home. The two kidnappers left this note:

“We take your kid.
Cheers,
Mr. Skateboarding and Mrs. Graffiti”

These two never asked for a ransom from my family, so they gave me up for lost.
I would never be an astronaut or that guy hanging onto a garbage truck that I was aiming for when I was kid.
The consequences of this kidnapping were bad in a way: troubles in school, shitty jobs, disappointments, fines, injuries… but the good consequences made it worthy: friends, travels, fun, survival, and the most important: freedom.
The 90’s skateboarding and graffiti movement was pretty unique and I think it marked deeply the lives of those who were involved in it, in the same way the emotional strength and freedom from tribal art marked the lives of Matisse, Picasso or Giacometti.

This experience has also given me a curious vision of the environment: The b-side of things.

You don’t learn this in school… or maybe, I don’t know, I quit school pretty soon, but where people don’t see anything special when they look at a bench or at a dirty wall for example, we the kidnapped people see spots, either for skate or paint.
With this in mind I’m interested in reviving old spaces, in resurrecting stuff, mixing textures and color palettes in order to make my artworks interact with dead scenarios, normally through surreal characters in everyday situations that we normally don’t pay attention to.
I basically turn ideas into geometric colored shapes that play with each other, flirting with abstract art, forcing the viewer’s brain to decipher the work.
If you dissect today some of my artworks you might find mediterranean life, graphic design, flamenco, arab influences, graffiti, cubism, tribal art, skateboarding, mythology, surrealism, nature… or something completely unrelated to that.

My grandma says my art is ‘chocante’ (shocking).

Born and raised in Madrid, adopted by Barcelona in the early 2000 and recently living in Dubai.

CHECK OUT SOME OF HIS WORKS!

Ruseifa, Jordan. 2015

City Blindness. Madrid 2016

Mi Casa es tu Casa. Za’atari Village, Syrian border of Jordan. 2014

Hunter S. Thompson. Las Vegas 2015

Rooftop skatepark. Barcelona 2016

Great to finally have him at Base Elements. Check out the store and hold tight for works coming soon!

Ruben Sanchez works on paper.

Over the last thirteen years many artists have come through the doors. Few however have been as consistent as Pajares, hundreds of his paintings have flown out the gallery. His works are literally in houses and personal collections of people all over the world!

He just dropped of his latest collection and you can check all his works here

Joan Pajares was born in Lleida, Spain, 1957. He is self-taught and did not attend any institute of Fine Arts. In a style that is uniquely his, Pajares believes his work should remain a sort of investigation field for the experimentation of the mix technique.”Believe in what you do, go up to what you believe”. This can be viewed as the definition of Pajares and his distinct works.”The city is a discourse and that discourse is truly a language: the city speaks to its inhabitants, we speak to our city”. Roland Barthes

Find out more about Pajares

Feature in El Mundo

We could write a thesis about how beautiful the streets of Barcelona are. How the street art in this city brings the town to life. But we’re not going to because you can read about that anywhere. Instead we’re just going to list some killer artists that you should hunt down if you’re visiting or if you live here!

Artists listed in no particular order, not alphabetical because we’re lazy and not by ego because we’re not rude. Click on their name to visit their personal sites.

VINZ

Well, actually from valencia but we had to stick him in here as his work is DOPE!

ZOSEN

Originally from Argentina Zosen has made Barcelona home. His murals are so stunning they make us want to cry tears of colour.

JLOCA

Retro, clean and to the point. Amazing works from Raval boy and a must for any serious urban collection.

H101

You don’t know symetry until you see hcientouno’s work. If you see a shop in Barcelona that is closed you’ll be glad it’s closed if the shutters are painted by him.

KENOR

Kenor brings walls back to life, the size of his works will literally blow your mind.

ALEIX GORDO

Aleix works as a illustrator and graphic designer and has some pretty hefty clients under his belt. Don’t let that distract you from his urban side however!

KAFRE

Philosopher Kafre paints beautiful occult imagery in black/gold and sometimes even scratched with a knife.

DEBENS

Let’s not try to pigeonhole Debens because this guy experiments with different styles, all of which have one thing in common: AWESOMENESS!

SM172

SM172 started with templates, and street art moving into murals, stencils and graffiti art. Barcelona’s streets would not be the same without him

BTOY

After studying law Btoy decided to break it by stencilling the streets with female icons which she combines with powerful brush strokes. She’s an Icon of the Barcelona streets herself now!

ART IS TRASH

AKA El Arte Es Basura turned Barcelona’s trash problem into a creative playground, creating installations that would eventually get picked up by the trash collectors!

FERT

“Colours, letters and clouds” was literally all i could find about this dude aside from some great .jpg flying around the web

DASE

For cash dase works with the biggest brands, for fun? He paints INSANE murals

IVANA FLORES

The dreamy world of Ivana Flores has blessed many walls around the world and she relentlessly produces amazing works on paper and canvas.

GOLA

Italian dude working between Barcelona and Italy. Aside from street art he also creates public installations

MISS VAN

Originally from France Miss Van travels the world with her art and luckily has blessed the streets of Barcelona as well

MINA HAMADA

Originally from the US she now resides in Barcelona. Aside from paintings and installations she also creates beautiful Murals often with Zolsen.

EL XUPETE NEGRE

Shame on you if you’ve been to Barcelona without spotting Xupete. That’s all we’re saying. Icon!

KONAIR

Speaking of Icons, you can’t miss this dude. First you’re like “It’s an ice lolly” then you’re like: “Oh it’s fucking sick!”

C215

Actually he’s french but the we can’t exclude his stencils from this list. We’re not fascists!!

ELEDU

Graffiti through and through and Barcelona born and bred. Often works with Kram!

MEIBOL

Mixing stencils of iconic people and objects Maibol is another one that is practically an institution in Barcelona

KRAM

A native who studied illustration and fine art and has kindly made the streets of Barcelona a better place for it.

TXEMY

The contrast, colours, shapes and style of Txemy’s work is pure stunning. Barcelona boy done good!

ZONE

Bombs are bad, unless they are by Zone in which case they are awesome. Another Icon for your eyes.

MOHAMED LGHACHAM

Are these murals or massive masterpieces? BOTH! Amazing style

EL PEZ

We had to finish this piece with El Pez who’s smiley fish is everywhere in and around Barcelona. In fact he has swam around the world with his unique and consistent style

Anyone we forgot? Don’t get pissy about it just send us a line

A MUST for any collector of contemporary street art we have some now works on paper by Francisco AKA Art Is Trash

Part of the most recent, exclusive one-off works from Art Is Trash keeping his unique style of battles scenes with Native Americans as the main subjects. These works have been made fresh after his self-imposed month exodus in South America and are available only here!

Art is Trash” (El Arte Es Basura) is the street name of Barcelona-based artist Francisco de Pájaro, who takes action when he sees a pile of rubbish and creates art with it, rearranging boxes, garbage bags, broken furniture, old mattresses,….and then paints it, sticks it with tape, leaves his trademark moniker and walks away. Find out more about Art Is Trash

Mr J Loca cruised by the other day and dropped off a serious overload of colour on wood and paper.

Keeping to his classic style check the pieces on wood:

and paper:

Find out more about JLoca here

During Sant Jordi in Barcelona many places that aren’t accessible to the public are open. Usually places like the city hall and so on. But the best Open house was at Francisco’s (AKA Art Is Trash) Studio in gothic.

PLEASE COME IN!

Find out more about Art Is Trash here: http://www.baseelements.net/product-category/art-is-trash/

Rare footage of Haring at work in Barcelona. Via StreetartBarcelona

Back in 1989 Barcelona was blessed with a mural in Raval by Keith Haring – now reproduced near MACBA the museum of modern art

More info here: