You don’t need a museum to find art.
Normally, graffiti everywhere is a bad thing, but there sure are some artistic spray painters in Valencia. I enjoyed wandering around Barrio del Carmen finding more and more graffiti. It also makes siesta time less dreary. During siesta time (anywhere from 1:30 to 5:30, depending on the city and the store), Spanish stores close their metal gates, making the street look a little neglected. In Barcelona, there was a lot of graffiti on the gates, but all of it was of the dodgey variety. Spanish cities can be confusing – and interesting – because each time you wander down the street, you find new stores and lose track of ones you’ve previously seen. So it is nice to have some art to look at while you are trying to find that store you just know you saw yesterday.
Here’s a sampling of the graffiti artists’ work:
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| From Valencia Graffiti |
TRUE THAT SISTER! I <3 Graffiti artists when they actually "create" something! Did you know each of them have a sign and they work that sign into the art? I had a friend once, long ago who was a graffiti artist. He would paint train cars and walls in urban neighborhoods. The walls were mostly approved by the neighborhood and he would have wayward kids help him. In each of his designs he would hide his sign in the art. Sometimes I could see it, other times he'd have to point it out to me. It really is a unique style of painting.
I really love these!