The famous Spanish painter, illustrator, and public space installation artist Octavi Arrizabalaga, known as Aryz, will be presenting his work in the Czech Republic for the first time. The Villa Pellé Gallery will showcase a selection from his current series Vestigio, which has been in progress since 2021. At thirty-five years old, Aryz is considered one of the key figures in the world of street art. He began as a graffiti artist but later exchanged spray paint for a brush and has created monumental murals around the world, stunning wall paintings tens of meters high characterized by subdued colors and life-sized figures in motion.
Aryz, who has over 300,000 followers on Instagram, draws inspiration from the works of Spanish masters such as Francisco Goya and Diego Velázquez, as well as artists of the New Leipzig School led by Neo Rauch, as well as the motion studies of photography pioneer Eadweard Muybridge and chronophotographer Étienne-Jules Marey. "With the exhibition Aryz Vestigio, we are building on the success of the Wall Street project, which two years ago showcased the works of prominent figures in the Czech street art community, whose work, like Aryz's, has gradually moved from city walls to galleries," says Vladana Rýdlová, director of the Villa Pellé Gallery.
Aryz's Vestigio exhibition will be open to the public at Villa Pellé from May 22nd to June 30th.
Aryz himself defined himself as an artist obsessed with translating movement into a static image. His figures dance, struggle, wrestle, and fight - and the artist reportedly mentally and physically prepares himself for each new painting as if it were a sporting event, which in his case can last for several days. While Aryz's previous series, Pugna (2019), explored themes of resistance, struggle, sadness, melancholy, and violence associated with the authoritarian Francoist regime in Spain, his current series, Vestigio, is characterized by more traditional compositions and a selection of more classical motifs.
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In the past, Aryz focused on the interactions between individuals, but now the cornerstone of his work is a simple central motif that captures our attention and leads it to the individual details of the painting. "The key theme of the monographic exhibition Vestigio is the titular word, which can be translated as 'remnant.' The main compositional tool here is precisely the remains - whether they are represented by parts of limbs, anatomical uncovering of bodily layers, or direct quotations from historical paintings. It is evident that Aryz's painterly world is full of history, emotion, tension, and beauty," explains one of the exhibition's curators, Michal Stolárik, about the artist's current themes. And the second curator, painter Lubomír Typlt, adds:
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I consider Aryz to be a painter who will set the direction for European painting in the coming years. His paintings are extraordinarily powerful. They are visually appealing and at the same time strong in their content. I believe that his exhibition in Prague will leave a deep mark on the Czech art scene.
Aryz (Octavi Arrizabalaga) was born in 1988 in Palo Alto, California. After three years, he moved with his parents to Barcelona, where he now lives and works in the Catalan town of Cardedeu. Like many artists of his generation, he began painting graffiti around Barcelona, where he became known as Aryz, while simultaneously studying at the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Barcelona. He became famous for his large-scale murals, which placed him among the world's best muralists. His works can be seen in many places around the globe, including Japan, the USA, China, Venezuela, and Morocco. Recently, he has started to work more in the studio and has reduced the number of murals he creates annually.
The opening hours for the Villa Pellé Gallery are as follows: Mon - closed, Tue-Wed 13:00-18:00, Thu 13:00-19:00, Sat-Sun 11:00-18:00.
You can read an article about Aryz or browse through an interview in the printed magazine Sport in Art.
