A new mural combining colors of blue and yellow colors of the Ukrainian flag, decorates a wall of a building in the 13th of Paris. the work is a kind of reminder of the human cost of the war in Ukraine, according to son artist C215.
But he is also a testament to talent of a man whose graffiti skills helped him overcome a traumatic youth to become one of France leading street artists – one one- Banksy collaborator time who tagged everything on the walls over the world.
Christian Guemy, 49-year-old real name, is a graffiti legend based in Paris who unveiled the huge new portrait of the ukrainian girl last week.
It contains a quote from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who said son personnel when he was elected in 2019: “I really don’t know want my photos in your offices, car I am neither a god nor an icon, but rather a servant of the nation. Instead, hang photos of ton children and watch them whenever you want make a decision.”
“It’s a universal message of support”, Guemy told Agence France-Presse (AFP) during son studio. “This challenges us reflect on the ongoing humanitarian drama in Ukraine and responsibility of politicians to do something. I can’t ignore the incursions of big politics in everyday people,” he explained.
Hero
The photos of Guemy are often of regular peoplelike child victims of conflicts from Syria to Kosovo to Rwanda.
He also depicts historical figures – heroes of French republicanism like the resistance fighters or the murdered Charlie Hebdo journalists in 2015.
In son studiostencils of Nelson Mandela and Jean-Michel Basquiat are stalled up against the walls.
“Perhaps some are too simplistic for the elites, but they are clear enough to touch a very large publicincluding in popular areas,” he said.
“I want my upcoming works more important than me, to unite people in a society where everything divides,” he said. added.
Not in 1973 in Bondy, a tough suburb on The suburbs of Paris, Guemy had fun drawing from a young grow old without expecting anything more From this.
“It was a place totally disconnected from the culture,” he says. ” I grew up up in the world of at night: violence, drugs, alcohol.”
His mother had it when she was 13 and her grandchildrenparents raised him as if they were his own parents and she was his sister.
Five years later, son mother committed suicide – a tragedy that he says he has only now “conquered”.
“Too tragic”
Brilliant and multilingual, he landed a job in luxury furniture exports, but after a painful pause-updated up son work at start do graffiti in the streets, with no idea of the success it would bring.
“I started to draw my daughter’s portrait around her house for signal my presence and channeling my depression,” he said.
He developed a simple method – cutting out faces in cards without prior drawing and then spray them.
This led to portraits of other people – “generally people who did a little more than the expected life of their.”
Shortly after his debut, he was spotted by members of by Banksy team and finished up collaborate with British entertainer and appearing in son 2008 documentary “Exit Through the Gift Shop”.
He felt “too French, too tragic” to continue their partnership, but it had opened doors for him and he found traveling the world himself setting up exhibitions, publishing books and helping to design video games.
The thing he is actually proud of, however, is son work in prisons (24 and more).
“It’s the work that I want people remember. The older I get, the more more I realize that attention for the weakest, the most fragile is what we should be constantly focused on,” he said.
