Skio and Théo Lopez at Square Henri-Karcher in Paris for Art Azoï

March 16, 2016 Artists

Paris, like many cosmopolitan cities around the world is mostly a pedestrian city – with about 60% of journeys are by foot rather than by car. With this in mind the city’s urban planners have been focusing on making the streets much friendlier to pedestrians by creating shared spaces, making the sidewalks free of clutter and more safe for people who walk, jog or ride bikes.

With the implementation of the Pedestrian Paris Initiative walking in Paris has become a whole lot easier and enjoyable in the last few years. Walking is the best way to get to know a city. It will be then fair to say that finding and experiencing Street Art is one of the many rewards from walking.

Here we see the newly commissioned mural by Skio and Théo Lopez for the Parisian organization ArtAzoï at the Square Herni-Karcher. Organizers say they are gifting the community with a mural that pays an homage to them, offering them to have a first hand, personal interaction with the art.

Skio and Théo Lopez. Work in progress. (photo © Michel Jean-Théodore)

“The latest installment of the mural at Square Henri-Karcher in the 20^th arrondissement in Paris features the artistic collaboration of Skio and Théo Lopez.

Skio is an artist of many talents, spanning from illustration to art direction, who has been painting graffiti across France since 1995. Active maker and shaker in the Parisian street art scene since 2005, he fluidly transforms his technical knowledge through one medium to the next. His work translates his loves and fears, and these nostalgic tendencies offer dynamic, detailed images that search for the sentimental.

Théo Lopez is a trained graphic designer and active member of the Parisian artist collective, “9ème Concept,” who has explored different artistic approaches since a young age. Originally attracted to tribal motifs and spiritual symbolism, his work has since evolved to a more abstract approach. Lopez’s abstraction creates works loaded with patterns and optical effects, offering a poetic union of the linear and material. His process rejects a pre-defined path; rather, he prefers to paint, cut, conceal and reveal in real time. This way he can allow each layer to prompt a dialogue, amongst contrasting colors and lines, that brings depth to each of his works.

After Art Azoï extended the invitation to Skio to paint the 40 meter-long wall at Square Henri-Karcher, he saw the opportunity to ask his friend and fellow artist, Théo Lopez, to collaborate on a mural that would combine their respective styles.

Skio chose to represent a jogger, who takes a break to daydream, as a nod to all the Parisian joggers who run past the mural every day. It’s this sort of consideration that is sensible to the interaction with passerby’s that makes a mural stimulating, and in this case, Skio’s work invites the viewer to be lost in reverie.

In his collaboration, Théo Lopez combines abstraction with different textures afforded by the acrylic paint to integrate Skio’s jogger into a futurist universe.

The mural was hardly an easy feat, given the endless rain, hail and snow that marked the five days of production. Yet these constraints offered their own perks at the end, allowing for both Skio and Lopez to experiment and create interesting textures from some areas where the paint washed away.

Both Skio and Théo Lopez plan to collaborate in the future, and to further explore the mélange of the figurative with the abstract to create it’s own universe”.

– Alex Parrish at Art Azoï