A fresh face at Urban Nation, the abstract muralist URKU has just completed the façade across the train tracks from the museum on Bulowstrasse.

Originally from Quito, Ecuador, Urku says he began his true immersion into graffiti and street art when he lived in Sydney, Australia and he hooked up with the Higher Ground crew. His first attempts were painting in abandoned places, he tells us, but the big scale walls really caught his attention.

Living in Berlin since 2015, Urku brought his girlfriend, Gamze Yalçın who is also an artist in Berlin, along for this installation on the busy thoroughfare full of noise and distractions.  He says his style has evolved more into abstraction today and he likes to think his art as a visual diary – one where he re-interprets his daily visual experiences into abstract compositions.

How did he feel elevated alongside the famous yellow trains of Berlin watching the burners fly by? “Perhaps it would have been very nice to have appreciated the scene while painting the wall with the trains running behind me,” he says, “but the fact is I had to paint all the time and to complete the project. But I was in awe that this was actually happening and seeing the trains with graffiti passing by was very cool.”

Our special thanks to BSA contributor Nika Kramer for these images and to UN.

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