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Weeds

They may be tiny but they break through concrete. They are everywhere and yet unseen. And the more they get stepped on, the stronger they grow back.

This is a series of paintings of urban weeds, created as a tribute to the resilience of all those beings who no one made room for, were not part of the plan, and yet keep coming back, pushing through and rising up.

I look for clandestine plant life in the city streets. When I find a particularly heroic specimen growing through a fissure in the pavement, I paint it big, at a scale inversely proportional to the attention and regard it gets.

Weeds reconnect earth to sky, life to its dreams. Against the hardest cement, against all odds, we too can find our fissure, and keep pushing. That’s the way change happens.

Phytograffiti

These are some of my weeds-graffiti: my original stop-motion animated series, and other spontaneous smaller pieces.

WEEDS ANIMATIONS + first weeds

I started my WEEDS project with these graffiti, painted inch by inch to create stop-motion animations, in locations with symbolic kinship to weeds for their community's reclaiming of space and a better life against great odds.

Phytograffiti in Lisbon

Some recent weeds I scattered in Lisbon, Portugal.

Phyteûma betonicifolium

This wildflower grew at Casa Merogusto, in Malvaglia, Switzerland. Inside this house, culinary wonders are created that elevate the gifts of wildflowers and weeds, like my murals do, but through the pleasure of the palate.

Community resilience

Over time, I got invited to contribute weeds at various symbolically perfect locations around the world, at a larger scale. The pieces below integrate my long-standing social practice of direct, street-level, spontaneous community participation in my murals, actively “feeding” the weeds metaphor at its root

Marskros - Grow Together

A dandelion growing strong because of a special root nourished by the residents themselves (see the close-up details). A micro-macro mural, created for Artscape Saga 2019 in Göteborg, Sweden.

Uma planta no Minhocão / A weed in São Paulo

A seedling of a common weed sprouted in the middle of the concrete jungle of central São Paulo, heralding a grassroots movement pushing for a life-afferming urban transformation there.

Taking Root

Featuring the first wildflower that made it back to barren land after its rehabilitation from industrial pollution. Its roots contain miniature paintings about the land's history, and a future vision based on resident children's wishes.

Commissioned weeds

The Weeds below were commissioned pieces, for either institutional, private, or public entities, and were also based on nearby spontaneous urban vegetation.

Shauquethqueat’s Eutrochium

Shauquethqueat’s Eutrochium, facing off the skyline across the Hudson. A dream of Nature winning, of plant life being the one towering over us for a change, putting us back in our place.