Graffiti in Girona

For street art in Girona, see Street art in Girona.

Graffiti near Plaça de la Independència

Like many cities in Spain, Girona has a lot of graffiti. Most of it is not street art; it is annoying, ugly tags on a wall. Locals in Girona seem to be used to it. For them, graffiti has become part of their city’s visual landscape, and they don't even notice it anymore. When asked about it, locals will agree that graffiti is a problem, but will say that it is the responsibility of building owners to remove graffiti if it's on private property (like graffiti on shop shutters). You will never see anyone trying to clean it off.

Newcomers are often shocked by the sheer number of tags covering walls, doors, and street furniture. The graffiti tags give the impression that Girona is neglected (because it probably is), and lead us to question why residents and authorities don’t simply clean it off.

Municipal sources admit that they know who is behind most of the graffiti, and that the majority are done by the same three or four people, but they need to catch them in the act in order to fine them.

"Tot Girona és plena de guixades! Ja n'hi havia però últimament és que no queda carrer que no tingui façanes, fanals, persianes de comerços, tot guixat. No marxa ni amb un rentat a pressió (ho he comprovat) i pintar una façana és caríssim."

English: “All of Girona is full of graffiti! There was already some, but lately there isn’t a single street without façades, lampposts, shop shutters — everything scribbled on. It doesn’t even come off with a pressure wash (I’ve tried), and repainting a façade is extremely expensive.”

https://x.com/mrierapla/status/1873748552754794843

Examples of graffiti in Girona

Garatge Forné

One of the most shocking examples of graffiti in Girona is the Garatge Forné, a former Seat showroom on Carretera de Barcelona, by Girona train station. This building is one of the first things people see when people they arrive at Girona for the first time. Doesn't exactly give a good impression, does it? This abandoned building is scrawled and painted on with seemingly over a hundred graffiti tags, ranging from small to massive. Locals walk by without even giving it a second glance. Google Street View shows that many of the same tags visible in 2015 are still there in 2025, which means a decade passed without any apparent attempts at removal. It raises the question of how this fits with the city’s slogan, “Girona m’enamora” (“Girona enchants me”). It also draws attention to the lack of action citizens of Girona take to keep their city clean, despite the pride residents they often claim to express about their city.

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  Garatge Forné
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  Garatge Forné

Protest graffiti

Graffiti is often used as form of protest. During a May Day demonstration, slogans were painted on businesses along Carrer Nou. Another notable example is in September 2024, when Arran (a pro-independence leftist youth organization in Catalonia) uploaded a video to the internet where they spray painted phrases like "Aqui no es venen bicis, aqui es mata el barri", "A luxe pel guiri" onto the former Teatre Odeon de Girona, which was being renovated into a cycling shop. The video made the news in the Diari de Girona.

Perpetrators of graffiti in Girona

Bulgaro Thug

Girona's most reviled graffiti menance is probably Bulgaro Thug, also known as Turk Thug, whose tags can be seen all over Girona. (Bulgaro means "Bulgarian" and Turk means "Turkish"). Police know his identity, but cannot charge him unless they catch him in the act of spraying a graffiti tag.

What makes him one of the most hated people on the Girona is his willingness to spray his tag on places other graffiti taggera wouldn’t, like historical buildings and street art. In 2024, Bulgaro Thug sprayed his tag on a wall outside the 1,000-year monastery Monestir Sant Daniel, generating fury on Twitter. People on Twitter suggested to “make him swallow his spray can", "make him clean all the graffiti in Girona, handcuffed, in an orange jumpsuit and with his head shaved", and "throw him in the Onyar river”. The vice-mayor, Gemma Geis, wrote, "This vandalism is intolerable. I hope the security forces can identify him very soon.”

Tweet from vice-mayor Gemma Geis

One Twitter user wrote, "Bulgaro thug és a pertot, la Devesa empastifada per aquest tros d'ase." (“Bulgaro Thug is everywhere, he’s trashed all of La Devesa.”)

Bulgaro Thug has a YouTube account. The account has three videos, all of them trap and techno music created by Bulgaro Thug. This has led some to conclude that the Bulgaro Thug tags around Girona are a way of Bulgaro Thug trying to promote his music.

Songs:

• TURK THUG X AK 47 MI BLUNT #THUGLIFE - 23 Dec 2023
• TURK THUG X ZÉ PEQUEÑO #THUGLIFE - 11 May 2024
• TURK THUG X DEAR MAMA #THUGLIFE, where he's take the song Dear Mama - 18 April 2025

In 2025, he started writing the words "bulgaro thug x DEAR MAMA" in different places in Girona to promote his latest song, Dear Mama.

Bulgaro Thug and Turk Thug appear to be the same person, since Bulgaro Thug and Turk Thug tags have the same writing style.

Bulgaro Thug's Facebook account used to be, but was deleted in late 2025 or early 2026.

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KAN7

KAN7 tags (sometimes written as KANELLES or KANELLES YOUTH FIRM) are perpetrated by members (or a single member) of Kanelles, a group of supporters of Girona Football club.

Kanalles was created in the 2023–24 football season with the idea of bringing together young people from Jovent Gironí. Jovent Gironí is the official supporters’ club of Girona FC.

(Kanalles is the youth section of Jovent Gironí, and Jovent already means "youth", so Kanalles are the young people of young people???)

Kanalles instagram: @secciokanalles. The first post was published on April 21, 2024. Their faces are blurred out in all of their photos.

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Other perpetrators

• SEKT
• LOKO (often paints coathangers)

LOKO graffiti

What is Girona city council doing about graffiti?

According to an article in 2024, Girona City Council removes about 900 graffiti tags every year, with an average cost of €110 to remove each piece of graffiti. (However, the article then says Girona City Council reportedly spends €1,100,000 each year (!) cleaning graffiti from public spaces, which includes the aforementioned costs, plus €1 million in staff work hours from the municipal cleaning teams, so the numbers in the report don't add up. )

The Deputy Mayor for Resource Management, Sergi Font, explained:

“We want to focus on the origin of these graffiti tags, as they stem from completely antisocial behaviors that must be reported and discouraged socially. Moreover, they are far from what we would consider urban art or murals.”
https://cadenaser.com/cataluna/2024/12/10/girona-destina-1-milio-deuros-cada-any-en-esborrar-pintades-del-carrer-radio-girona/

The article claimed that the City Council will buy €11,000 machine in 2025 to make graffiti removal for the municipal cleaning teams.

In October 2025, a resident messaged the council, asking if they would remove graffiti tags from an abandoned shop near his house. The council replied they only remove graffiti within the area covered by the Special Protection and Inner Reform Plan of the Barri Vell. Elsewhere, property owners are responsible for cleaning graffiti themselves.

Local efforts to remove graffiti

American Monica Smith spray paints street art onto shop shutters in exchange for tips. https://www.instagram.com/m172smith/

There were apparently no local efforts to remove graffiti until 13 September 2025, when Girona Buddies uploaded a video to its Instagram account showing one of its members cleaning graffiti from an abandoned store front, using a mobile pressure washer intended for cleaning bicycles. The video received over 10,000 views and 180 likes in the first month. Comments were mostly supportive, but one user commented "You’ve probably poured who knows how many litres of toxic products, solvents, and enamel down the drain, polluting it and causing a problem at the treatment plant. All that just to do something nobody cared about, to fix a problem that didn’t exist, and that won’t make any difference because next week it’ll be painted over again. You’re extremely stupid."

In 29 September, a new Instagram account called @gironanostra was created. One of the first posts showed the removal of a "Palestina Lliure" graffiti tag from Parc Miquel de Palol.

Other

• In US, spray paint is locked in hardware stores, so you need to ask a store assistant to buy one. In contrast, spray paint isn't locked away in Spain, and what's more, it is easily available to buy in local Chinese stores.
• The town of San Nicolas, Aruba, is famous for its urban murals. It has an Aruba Art Fair, where artists paint murals on the walls. https://www.aruba.com/us/explore/san-nicolas-art-murals. https://artisaruba.com/ An artist called Tito Bolívar participated in it. He has also painted a mural in a Mexican restaurant in Girona.
• In the Barri Vell, there is a law that only four specific colours can be used on shop shutters.
• There appears to be a free graffiti wall near Parc de Jordi Vilamitjana i Pujol

Graffiti wall near Parc de Jordi Vilamitjana i Pujol