In Spain, a church parish painted with graffiti

Rudy, a 38-year-old graffiti artist with more than twenty years of experience spraying walls of city buildings with aerosols and sprays and receiving not only recognition from “advanced” art connoisseurs, as well as constant penalties from the authorities, responded to the call of the priest Ramon More, who saw samples of him works on the internet.

The street artist accepted an amazing creative challenge and the proposal to adapt his methods and style to religious themes and agreed to paint the aspidas of the church of Santa Eulalia de Provencana in the city of Hospitalet de Lobregat, taking into account the preservation of the Catalan Romanesque style of religious painting.

Rudy, who lives in the city of Alicante and who does not like the term graffiti in relation to his methods of work, called his friend, an artist from Madrid, who also works on the street, and together, with four hands, they set to work, during which they needed to portray the Madonna and Child, the patron saint of Santa Eulalia and the people who symbolize the faithful working class of the neighborhood of the Hospitalet neighborhood.

The goal of the priest, who has been at the helm of the parish for less than a year, is not only to decorate the apse of the altar of this church, built in 1957 - he said it was “very solemn, but empty”, but also to send a “message of optimism and solidarity” to believers during the crisis.

The archbishop was informed that a reform of the appearance of the church was coming, but as it turned out, the priest did not specify that the holy faces would be painted by graffiti specialists… The painting of the church, by the way, was completed in just two weeks.

“If people did not know that the graffiti artists made the murals, then the quality of design and decoration, small details are so delicate and perfect that no one could think that it was done with a spray,” said pastor Santa Eulalia, who admired.

The priest is delighted with the results. Believers and surrounding residents, who saw the result, began to spread glory about the frescoes of the 21st century, and many already want to repeat this experience in their parishes. “Art, whether graffiti, or oil, or watercolor, when perfect, is in any case serving God and man,” says the pastor, who hopes to support believers in times of economic uncertainty.

bp