I have spoken openly and expressed this lifestyle in different ways.
Graffiti is not just a signature on a wall for me; it represents so much more. It is like a cry of life, like public therapy that sometimes heals and cures more than a thousand words here in the town where the dark corners eat away at any hope. Painting a wall is like taking pain and transforming it into something colorful. That's how I see it, just like those bachata songs that dry your tears. Sometimes I arrive with my head down, and it was the end, I end up smiling with my hands full of paint, as if it were a knife and a tonic at the same time, cutting away what hurts and repairing what is broken.
And if I speak generally about here in Venezuela right now, there is a high level of street muralism. There are different groups of boys and girls who, with their spray cans, are not looking for fame. They are looking to survive the anguish, channel this social hangover, and move forward.
As the strokes are made, one connects with the memory, with the memories of the town or the neighborhood, with those people who endure the morning breeze. Memories are obtained that sometimes weigh heavily, and if I talk about painting with others in the community while we share history, we laugh and let off steam. It is totally therapeutic.
This work was done last weekend. We must remember that it was also urban art with facades, which makes a lot of sense. This will remind us that there are still people like us willing to capture a sense of beauty and resistance to those pale faces that the street gives us. Many will find motivation and strength to move forward, but we remain present on the walls where we capture our art to continue shouting that we are here to connect with something beyond all this crisis and all these problems that seem to have no end and seem like a sentence.
