Street art in Girona

Street art in Girona

Erica il Cane's Cocollona

A huge Cocollona measuring 15 by 20 metres, painted by Italian artist Erica il Cane, was during the Milestone Project of 2012 on the wall of Carrer Bonastruc de Porta, 7. The Cocollona is a mythical creature that is half-crocodile, half-butterfly, and is said to live in Girona's rivers.

Cocollona street art, Girona

Okuda’s "Venus"

In 2017, a Spanish artist called Okuda painted a huge colorful mural called "Venus" at Plaça Mela Mutermilch, near La Devesa nursery school, as part of that year's Milestone Festival. Okuda took inspiration from a Venus he saw in Paris. He painted the mural without any preliminary sketches. It took him a week to paint it, using a cherry picker, starting on Monday 11 October 2017, with the yellow, red, green background. He completed the background and the Venus in the first two days. He finished the mural on Friday 15 October.

This mural shows a large, colorful geometric figure of Venus, the goddess of beauty and love. The woman is tilting her head back and holding something that looks like a telescope or a bottle. A red bird appears perched on her arm. The woman’s body is made up of bright, multicolored geometric shapes—triangles and polygons in shades of blue, pink, green, yellow, red, and orange, creating a mosaic or kaleidoscopic effect. There are also large flowers growing at the bottom right, painted in matching vivid colors.

Okuda (real name Óscar San Miguel Erice) is a Spanish painter known for his colourful geometric patterns. He often reinterprets classical sculptures, symbols, and animals, in his distinctive colorful style. His website is https://okudasanmiguel.com and his Instagram is https://instagram.com/okudart.

Links

• https://streetartcities.com/markers/15128
• https://www.elpuntavui.cat/cultura/article/1239374-totes-les-grans-ciutats-haurien-de-tenir-un-milestone.html

El Somni

El Somni, Girona

Sotavies Urban Gallery

Part of the Milestone Project is the Sotavies Urban Gallery. In 2014 and 2015, artists from Catalonia and elsewhere around the world came to turn the concrete pillars under Girona’s railway tracks (which Xavier Masó called "among the ugliest in the city’s infrastructure") into a public art museum. The tracks run along Carrer Bonastruc de Porta.

• 
  Bimbo, painted in 2014 by autistic German artist Boris Hoppek (@borishoppek3)
• 
  Painted in 2015 by @Sam3
• 
  Painted in 2015 by Jofre Oliveras
• 
  Painted in 2015 by Cristina Lliurart
• 
  Painted in 2015 by Boris Hoppek
• 
  Martin Luther King, painted in 2015 by Andrea Btoy
• 
  Painted by Boris Hoppek
• 
  Toilet brush, unknown artist
• 
  Painted in 2015 by Milu
• 
  Painted in 2015 by Kram
• 
  Painted in 2015 by Kram

Festival monar'T

A good place to see street art is Santa Eugènia. *Festival monar’T (sometimes written as Monart) is an annual event involving painting murals on the walls in the neighbourhoods of Santa Eugènia and Can Gibert. Almost as if it took over from the Milestone Festival, the Monar’T Festival held its first edition in 2019. It originated as a community initiative involving various local associations and organizations. Proposals for murals are accepted in May and June and the murals are painted in September. The festival has a social and multicultural focus. See https://festivalmonart.cat

• Inund’Art Festival is an annual contemporary art festival in Girona. It was launched around 2005 by a group of artists and cultural professionals.

Milestone Project

Painted in 2015 by Boris Hoppek

The Milestone Project was a street art festival in Girona that ran from 2012 to 2019. It was organised by Xavier Masó (@xevimaso) and Ignacio Moltó.

"My partner, Ignacio Moltó, and I mainly worked in music and theatre, and we saw that Girona had great potential. It suddenly emerged from nothing, and now, five years later, we realize we have almost 30 large-scale murals spread across the city.” Xavier Masó, 2016. https://www.lavanguardia.com/local/girona/20160911/41204643568/milestone-project-girona-artistas-internacionales.html

The main part of the festival was bringing street artists to Girona to paint murals. The festival was funded by city council funds, to pay for artists’ flights and large-format murals around the city. The festival attracted some of the most important international artists such as Elian Chali, Okuda San Miguel, and Reskate Studio. The aim was to make Girona a reference city in the world for Urban Art. It was called the "the main contemporary urban art festival in Spain" Unlike other festivals that concentrate work in one area, Milestone spread murals across the city. Each artist was given their own façade, crane, and paint.

Some sources say there were also concerts and workshops

The final edition of the festival in Girona was in 2019. A 2020 edition was planned, but the Girona City Council withdrew funding a few months before. The then-mayor, Marta Madrenas, explained funding could no longer be given because the council was required to return surplus funds to the Spanish government, presumably due to the COVID crisis. In 2021, the Milestone Project was organised for a final time in Ripoll (a town about an hour drive from Girona).

Links

Editions of the festival

• 2012: https://www.pedresdegirona.com/milestone_project.htm
• 2013: https://www.pedresdegirona.com/milestone_2013.htm
• 2014: https://www.pedresdegirona.com/milestone_2014.htm, https://thereart.ro/milestone-project/
• 2015: https://www.pedresdegirona.com/milestone_2015.htm
• 2016: https://www.pedresdegirona.com/milestone_2016.htm. This edition focused on Passeig de Canalejas and Ribes del Ter.
• 2017: https://www.arteinformado.com/agenda/f/milestone-project-2017-144319, http://comedia.cat/ca/comediateca/milestone_project_2017 (some great photos)
• 2018: https://www.arteinformado.com/agenda/f/milestone-project-2018-162660
• 2019: https://www.arteinformado.com/agenda/f/milestone-project-2019-179418

Social media

• Website: https://www.milestoneproject.cat (now gone)
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/milestoneproject_art
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/milestonegirona/ (now gone)
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/MilestoneGirona (now gone)

Contact

• Phone: 673740605
• Email: nacho@milestoneproject.es

Artists who have made urban art in Girona

• Sam3 is a Spanish street artist, born in Elche, Spain, in 1980. One of his most characteristic motifs is using dark, human-like silhouettes (often in black).
• Boris Hoppek was born in in 1970 in Kreuztal, Germany. His current base is Barcelona, Spain. One of his more controversial icons is “Bimbo”, which is a character with dark face and red lips. While not offensive at all in Spanish culture, in other countries it evokes “blackface.” Website: http://www.borishoppek.de
• Andrea Michaelsson, or better known as Andrea Btoy, was born in Barcelona in 1977. Instagram: @btoyglitch
• Jofre Oliveras is from Girona
• 108: http://www.108nero.com/
• 3ttman: https://3ttman.com/
• Agostino Iacurci: http://www.agostinoiacurci.com/
• Btoy. https://www.flickr.com/photos/btoy/
• Cyop & Kaf: http://www.cyopekaf.org/en
• Cristina Lliurat: http://cargocollective.com/cristinalliurat
• El xupet negre: https://elxupetnegre.com/
• Ericailcane: http://www.ericailcane.org/
• Jofre Oliveras: https://jofreoliveras.wordpress.com/
• Kram: http://www.kram.es/category/wellcome/
• Milu: http://www.widewalls.ch/artist/milu-correch/
• Momo: http://momoshowpalace.com/
• Lucy Maclaughlan: http://lucy.beat13.co.uk/
• Marta Salvador: https://www.martasalvador.net/
• Pau Morales: https://www.paumorales.com/
• Rata con corbata: https://www.rataconcorbata.com/
• Reskate: https://www.reskatestudio.com
• Vhils: http://vhils.com/

(List of artists and website is from https://web.girona.cat/documents/20147/10808186/ART-URBA-2023.pdf)

Links

• https://streetartcities.com/cities/girona/artworks