Mr. Dheo pressed the valve of 140 cans over “more or less” a week to complete the work that is inaugurated today in Ilha Dourada. Cristóvão Colombo is the figurehead of this latest work by the ‘street art’ artist from Porto, which comprises a ‘canvas’ measuring over 100 square metres.
More than 20 years ago, when Mr. Dheo never dreamed that graffiti would put food on his table, it was almost unthinkable that a municipality would spend any money for, at the time, a mere teenager with spray cans in his hands to paint some walls.
The mentality, accompanied by the now sparse social stigma, ended up changing, mainly thanks to the creativity and firmness of some ‘writers’ – those who resort to graffiti as an artistic expression -, including Mr. Dheo, the artist who now places Porto Santo on the list of Municipalities that, using urban art, have dared to transform the certain aesthetic vulgarity of their buildings.
Thus, a market was created that “allowed the balance to be balanced”, that is, “today we walk in cities and we already find super interesting, appealing murals that conquer us and that end up being part of the identity of these cities, and the graffiti that it’s next door, illegal, it starts to have less impact, because there’s that balance”.
However, André Cunha recognizes that “there is still a little bit” of prejudice. “Obviously, if we use the word graffiti it is sometimes complicated, but I believe it is evolving in the right direction and things are changing”, he admits, even if the country walks at a different pace compared to other cities in the world where artist born in Porto has already left his mark.
“There is tourism geared towards urban art, very likely the vast majority of tourists and especially foreigners and even those who come from the mainland who visit Porto Santo already identify a lot with this type of language and it is always another way of spreading the word. island and promote the cultural identity of here”, he acknowledges.
Thus, the Municipality of Porto Santo, like several Portuguese cities, now has one more element of tourist attraction related to urban art, this one designated as ‘Mural of Christopher Columbus’.
The mural comprises an area about 8 meters long and 13 meters high, where in addition to the figure of Columbus, a caravel is also represented, symbol of the Portuguese discoveries.