Street Art: More Murals in the Streets of Lagos

This is an automated translation of the original in German.

Street art is more than just passing art. During our first visit to Lagos in 2017 we discovered by chance that the murals have a system there – most of them were created by ARTURb, an urban art project that has brought some of the most representative national and international artists in this field to Lagos and the Algarve. During our most recent visit, on a cloudy (and later rainy) day in January 2024, we took a walk through the city along the street art. Of course, not completely at all, which was also helped by a real rain shower – but at least we quickly made the choice of the right restaurant (which was exactly opposite the visited in 2017, but it’s really a coincidence!).

The tour didn’t start (and end) at a StreetArt hotspot in a parking garage – so there are better starting points if you don’t need a parking space and it’s all about the Murals. But at least right at the beginning (somewhat far away from all the others) we saw a bone man the size of a house wall at a hotel, guarding the parking lot in front of it. The Spanish artist Aryz loves things big, bone men appear again and again (e.g. in Cologne) – but he can also be colorful and almost life-affirming!

A wall that appears on GoogleMaps as StreetArt Wall offers plenty of impressions. Not all of them can be easily captured in a picture – Street Aert is art in public space and is therefore often blocked up. That’s not nice for photographers, but what’s not possible is when people who think they’re funny mess with the work and add their own ideas to it. The characterful man with the cigarette is by Joao Samina; the work was created in 2016 at a Samina workshop as part of ARTURb 2016, which was organized by the LAC (Laboratório de Actividades Criativas). . Samina’s art is a mix of his roots in architecture (he studied the subject), his interest in graphic design and the experience he over the years on the streets of Lisbon (where he lives) trying new things.

Right next to it we see two portraits of Tars8Two (that’s the signature). On his website he describes himself as a Muralist, which is of course completely different than a Moralist! The Brazilian artist Tarso Silva lives in Portugal and was „38 years old with 24 years of experience in graffiti art“ when he created his website text. At first there were problems with the owners of the walls and the police. Six years of college and one important experience later (a friend had a bar in Curitiba, Brazil and invited him to paint the place), the world looked different. Having made painting his profession, Tars8Two he became a cracker (graffiti term for masters who can paint all art styles with spray cans) and specialized in hyperrealism – the most difficult style to paint with cans . By the way, you can see the rap legend MC Rakim on the left and the hip-hop musician and actress Queen Latifah on the right.

A little further to the north we see a convict on a wall, connected to a wastebasket in the real outside world with a chain on his foot. The Italian artist signs his works with Fiumani – and he loves to relate objects and murals to one another. Born in Loreto (Italy) in 1987, Filippo Fiumani aka Mani works as a visual artist, street artist, performer and actor. For him, art is not only an aesthetic thing, but also as a social tool to transmit and improve human values. Since 2017, he has focused on recycling and reusing primarily human waste and combining it with his technologies to create art. (The lamp was not there when the work was created, as you can see in old pictures. And the garbage box no longer seems to be the original one either…)

Greyhounds to wolves and back again was created in 2021 as a joint work by Tamara Alves, Margarida Fleming, Huariu and Bigod. On Instagram they have put together a remarkable Timelapse from the individual images.

The stencil art by Anders Gjennestad aka Strøk has no title, but we called the one created in 2016 (and slowly but surely rusting) work simply „Floating men on a rusty gate“. Strøk’s stencils are immediately recognizable: he likes the weightlessly floating figures and places them sometimes on huge house walls, sometimes in small doors. Strøk was born in Norway in 1980 and lives in Berlin.

A few meters further there is a double feature, but it was created in different years.

Czarnobyl is a stencil artist born on the Polish side of the Ukrainian border as Damian Terlecki. It is no coincidence that his stage name is reminiscent of April 26, 1986 and the catastrophe at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. He creates dark, gloomy and repulsive worlds of confrontation from shapes and motifs of bizarre-looking people. His pictures show an optical overdose of forms and an almost exaggerated level of detail in photographic portraits, forcing the viewer to immerse themselves in his universe. The work (untitled) here is from 2018.

SnikArts stands for an artist duo from Stamford, Great Britain. Her work, created in 2023, is called The memory remains.

A solitaire by Jaoa Samina from 2019 significantly brightens up the area around the Mercado Municipal de Santo Amaro. You can see a double portrait of the writer Sophia de Mello Breyner Adresen.

BIGOD, real name João Domingos, is a Portuguese artist known for his work using the stencil technique. He specializes in depicting ethnic and regionalist concepts and promotes through his art traditional activities that have been forgotten in modern society. BIGOD brings a contemporary touch to traditional themes by fusing geometric and organic shapes into unique compositions. An exciting story is hidden behind the school wall designed by BIGOD. The topic of the Walls with Life project was biodiversity . The project was part of the Eco-Schools program and took place in cooperation with the Creative Activities Laboratory (LAC), among others. The aim was to use urban art to increase awareness of the importance of biodiversity and ecosystem preservation. Sara from LAC led workshops on biodiversity and stenciling, where each student could create their own stencil and use it to paint on the school wall. And while the students designed a wall (and a parallel screen as a thank you to the sponsors) in the week before International Biodiversity Day, BIGOD beautified the windowless wall of the school building. The students‘ work cannot be viewed from the outside

The area on the city wall on Rua Infante de Sagres was painted over in 2021: Huariu , born in Portugal in 1992 and has only been in the street art business for about ten years, shows with this impressive portrait that he can also use color – because he usually gets by with black (which is already white underground…). The red looks good, of course – and black and white with a splash of color was also available in the predecessor Borondo.

We had to look around the corner now, because in 2017 What goes around comes around by Michał ‚SEPE‚ Wręga fascinates. This is now ten years old, but is still clearly visible – albeit a little paler.

There was also a reunion at the corner of Rua da Atalaya and Rua João Bonança with Francisco Bosoletti’s female face, which has been spreading joy here since 2015. In comparison to the 2017 recording you can see how the art has been pointlessly enriched here too.

Small and inconspicuous next to a door on one of these switch box covers, we discovered a portrait, the author of which is Guatè Mao – a French street artist, who creates detailed and expressive images with just a few stencils. „Despite his growing fame, Mao remains elusive and keeps his identity secret,“ we read . If it helps with the creation of legends…

The two Swiss Onur (who now lives in Berlin) and Wes21 got together in 2013 for a collaborative effort and put a colorful fantasy picture on the long wall of Rua Lançarote Freitas. Something with greyhounds and a cursor that is way too big on one side and something with a boat and a thumbs up on the other side. Given the dogs chasing, the picture could simply be called Running…. But the title is Hunt, almost like dog (but only in German 😉 )

Two cuddling snails in front of lush flowers by the Belgian artist Roa (real name? Not known!) It’s quite good here: nature brings the colors, and for once Roa hasn’t immortalized itself with dead animals, so it usually takes a little more tolerance before acceptance…

Lagos Jungle Fever is a collaboration between the three artists Tars8Two, Tetebotan Kali and Le Funky, the three of them have different backgrounds, come from different countries (Brazil, Ghana and Portugal). Every artist has their place on the wall. „The work is intended to promote a sense of togetherness. We are all from different tribes, but we are still all human,“ is the statement from three artists.

Just a little further (once around a crooked corner…) we see familiar and new things. The wall of the Centro Cultural de Lago has a new – almost comprehensive – look. Finding new Shapes is the appropriate title of the mural from The Caver, which will be there in 2023 can be seen (in 2017 it was a kind of jellyfish fuzz with crowns from Gonçalo Mar, applied in 2012). „Thirty-seven-year-old CAVER, called Nuno Barbedo by his mother and father, has been painting with cans since he was fifteen“, I read in a nice article about the artist, who used his stay in Lagos for more than just commissioned work…

The wall below the house wall is a cooperation between Add Fuel & Samina was created in 2013, but you can still clearly see the idea: in the typical Portuguese azulejos (contribution from Add Fuel) and the portrait of an old man (Samina em>). Let’s see how long this lasts…

Azulejos – these are the painted, colorful ceramic tiles. Saudade – Longing – calls his work Add Fuel (that’s Diogo Machado), which is a real eye-catcher and 2020 was – we remember: the first year of the pandemic. „Saudade is a feeling of longing, melancholy, desire and nostalgia that is characteristic of the Portuguese temperament. It describes a deep emotional state, a longing,“ Add Fuel describes his work and interprets: „After a long time in which I Working from home and in the studio, last week I had the opportunity to travel to the south of my Portugal to paint this mural in the historic center of beautiful Lagos in the Algarve. What a wonderful way to slowly to return to a new normal. In these strange times we all live in, this feeling and message makes more sense than ever. We all miss something these days, we miss our loved ones, we miss hugs, we miss freedom, we miss our lives . Saudade is a feeling that we as Portuguese always feel, now and always.“

At this point in our tour the weather went from stupid to uncomfortable – and it was fitting that we were standing in front of the Taberna da Mo. With a glass of wine, we wanted to survive the approaching hustle and bustle while staying dry on the outside. The fact that we stayed longer was due to Husche’s misjudgment – the rain was getting heavier. We also liked the menu…

When we took a look back as we left the restaurant, we saw Santa Maria – a large mural on the wall of the Taberna da Mo and part of the forecourt to the Santa Maria restaurant. Tars8Two designed it in 2023.