“In this artwork, nature and its forces are represented,” says the artist of the newest “12+1” project.

NULO. “Sobrenatural”. Contorno Urbano Foundation/12 + 1 Project. Sant Feliu de Llobregat, Spain. (photo © Alex Miró)

A recent act of extreme weather in Italy inspired this new mural in Sant Feliu de Llobregat by Lucia Pintos (aka Nulo) from Montevideo, Uruguay. A huge storm had devastated an entire forest, destroying thousands of trees, scattered like toothpicks across the mountains and land.

Nulo says that she thinks of nature as a balance of two forces: dynamic and static. Despite the power of the wind to mold mountains and transform landscapes, she also concentrates on the static force of the trees roots, which hold them in place until they snap.

NULO. “Sobrenatural”. Contorno Urbano Foundation/12 + 1 Project. Sant Feliu de Llobregat, Spain. (photo © Alex Miró)

In the face of such a torrent of power, she admires the countervailing power of resistance. Of the trees and mountains and stones, she says, “They don’t give up, they don’t fall, they don’t let the wind win.”

You can see these forces at play in this abstraction that may also remind you of earth science diagrams, but this one does capture the energy Nulo is going for, capturing “Two equal forces that, at the same time, are completely different,” she says.

NULO. “Sobrenatural”. Contorno Urbano Foundation/12 + 1 Project. Sant Feliu de Llobregat, Spain. (photo © Alex Miró)

NULO. “Sobrenatural”. Contorno Urbano Foundation/12 + 1 Project. Sant Feliu de Llobregat, Spain. (photo © Alex Miró)

Contorno Urbano Foundation – 12 + 1 Project

As FUNDACIÓ CONTORNO URBANO ends another year of their project called “12 + 1”, the community-based organization expands from one wall to four. Collectively they give opportunities to artists to paint in public and to the people on the street to appreciate the processes, techniques, and motivations that artists employ in the creation. The model for engagement is similar to many yet entirely separate from previous notions of public art: an engaged responsible program that is accountable to community yet still gives wide berth to the individual styles of the artists and their need to express ideas or experiment with new approaches.

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