“Certainties, simple explanations, last hopes, magic thoughts and fears. All of them confronted by what is evident.”

Thus describes the figure slung with bullets, holding a necklace with a cross and delicately balancing a small green apple on his index finger on a larger than life mural in Santiago, Chili. The visual language of this graffiti/Street Artist and muralist name Inti is his to wield, a cosmic folk that glows with celestial waves surrounding an other-worldly race of characters.

INTI. Éditions Albin Michel, 2017. Paris, France.

The messages these massive murals carry may be layered, their determination and commitment is not to be doubted. His new grandly gilded monograph certainly earns your attention, and keeps it with quality materials, photography, and accessible crisp writing by Pablo Aravena that dares to be esoteric when describing the artists work.

Born from a post dictatorship community muralism that blossomed in the 80s and 90s as the country forged a new identity, the explosive graffiti scene that first captured the imagination and street practice of the teenage Inti was eventually channeled into a fine art education and formal study of the tenets and techniques of the painters. Paired with a fascination with religious dogma, the traditions of carnival and the symbols of power, hope, ornament and sustenance, Inti is forging a language known to him and his characters in a way that still can foster an empathetic response from the viewer of his massive murals in places as farflung as Honolulu, Boras, Beirut, Belgium.

INTI. Éditions Albin Michel, 2017. Paris, France.

The Valparaíso-born artist whose name translates in Incan to ‘Sun’ is a master of light as well, shining it in gentle cadences across singular figures who could be multi-natural, sans-national, or inter-stellar.

Gathered in folds of robes, adorned in floating baubles and brightly glowing with reflecting patterns and gentle animals in arms, they may be evocative of carnival figures, fortune tellers, and of religious seers from around the world and throughout history, as is his universal searching for meaning, ultimately sharing some truths too no doubt.

INTI. Éditions Albin Michel, 2017. Paris, France.

INTI. Éditions Albin Michel, 2017. Paris, France.

INTI. Éditions Albin Michel, 2017. Paris, France.

INTI. Éditions Albin Michel, 2017. Paris, France.

INTI: Color, Carnaval y Resistencia by Inti Castro (Author),‎ Pablo Aravena (Author)

Trilingual French/Spanish/English.

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