ROA: Postcards from The Australian Outback and The Coast of Chile

March 15, 2012 Artists, Australia, Chile, Features, On the Street, Santiago, Valparaiso

ROA continues his vertiginous worldwide tour with the animal kingdom in tow, meeting many of the two legged species on the way. Venturing far from his river town of Ghent in Belgium, ROA brings his distinctive monochromatic aerosol painting everywhere; high lands, flat lands, canyons, mountains, crusty old buildings, huts, rusty car carcasses, wooden vessels, water tanks. More often today he also brings them to a gallery or the occasional museum.

ROA. A Bilby. Pilbara, Australia (photo © ROA)

His unassuming depiction of an animal that is native to the area is ROA’s way of offering a non-sentimental, beautiful side of the material world and a way of respecting it; these are the flesh and bones of the animals that we eat, hunt, care for or ignore. Whether we regard them for our use for pleasure or our survival, ROA gives animals the main stage, where we’ll be more likely to appreciate their role, existence, death, and even personality.

At ease in cosmopolitan areas with Street Art scenes like New York, London, Los Angeles or Mexico City, ROA shares here brand new images from his most recent travels in the Australian Outback and the coast of Chile. Their distinctly different climates and unassuming relics of the built environment can serve as thoughtful vessels, breath-taking back drops for the creatures he brings with. ROA’s acute observational style, rendered with a can in what could be described as a fine and precise hand, continues to illustrate his vivid eye and almost daring approach to his craft.

In person these are striking, a strong reminder of our own mortality and our role as humans on the planet we share with other species. These images below, exclusively for BSA readers, are as beautifully painted as they are placed.

ROA. A Bilby and his tail. Pilbara, Australia (photo © ROA)

ROA. Pilbara, Australia. Kangaroo bones on the foreground. (photo © ROA)

ROA. Valparaiso, Chile. (photo © ROA)

ROA. Santiago, Chile. (photo © ROA)

While in Australia ROA was a guest of FORM, a non-profit organization who works with the Aboriginal communities throughout the Pilbara region. He was invited on a field trip to gain a better anthropological perspective of the native culture and nature of the land.

While in Chile ROA visited Santiago and Valparaiso. In Santiago he painted the horse mural on the San Miguel Neighborhood. He was a guest of the famed local muralist Mono Gonzalez. Mono, as he is locally known, has been painting murals in Chile for several decades since before the dictatorship. Mono is the director of an open air museum called “Museo A Cielo Abierto de San Miguel”. ROA is very thankful for the hospitality of the Familia de Roberto Hernandez.

To learn more about the murals of Museo A Cielo Abierto de San Miguel click on the link below:

http://www.mixart.cl/index.php