Mateus Bailon

• With my dads company I got the chance to help out filming a massive mural with Brazilian street artist Mateus Bailon.
• As part of a project called 'Cities of Hope' he was commission to cover a huge wall in the northern quarter in Manchester.
• He worked on an absolutely massive scale and covered the whole side of a building. He used a crane lift that he could control from the basket to get around the wall.
• I took over 2 days for him to fully complete it, 1 day painting the all the black, 2 days painting the mural.

Photo's from the day...

• I spoke to him briefly a few times when he had a break from painting, he told be about what painting was like brazil, he was telling me about the general ideas behind his street-art/career and how it was about bringing nature and the jungle and animals back into the streets and urban areas of brazil. He was telling me about who he paint with and hes good friends with another street artist called 'Osgemeos' who I was familiar with.
• I asked him about how he went about making the design for the building - he said that he had a rough idea of the main composition, the big bird at the top and then other birds moving up the wall with it, but he said he had to figure out most of the composition as he goes to fit it around shapes in the wall, like the balconies and walk ways across the wall - he said that he to adapt the design around the spaces. - I found this really interesting because I can relate to this a bit within my own spray painting and how the design is adapted around the environment you are working in.

The finished wall, this was his photo that he got from the opposite building...

• I love the finished wall, I really like how it works on the black background and how he works into colour with black details it brings out all the vibrancy in the colours. He has a very soft and tonal visual quality which works perfect for what he is trying to do. I can really see what he was talking about bring nature to urban areas - is clear in the finished thing, how all the animals and greenery are merged together and overlapped, it really communicates a vibrant energetic jungle.

Other work....