Micaela is a visual artist from Argentina, who graduated at the end of 2020 at the National University of La Plata. Last five years, I worked in the design and art team of Amblagar Studio, a company that produces video games and animated series for children. However, at the beginning of June, I moved to Gent, where I live and plan to grow as an artist.
I’m particularly interested in creating worlds and telling stories, but I don’t only work as a freelance digital artist, the projects that I enjoy the most are those that involve painting in the street. Following the tradition of Latin American Street Art, I like my works to contain messages that make us rethink the reality in which we live. I believe that as artists we have a fundamental role in the construction of identities and values of our communities. For me Street art works as a democratizing agent of culture since it circulates through non-traditional spheres of art. Any person, regardless of gender, age, origin or religion can have access to this type of visual productions.
I like to think that as an illustrator I learned that any canvas can be a piece of art, and that a blank canvas has infinite possibilities. That is why I made drawing my profession and way of life.
Graffiti collectie
This final project is the result of a series of skills and tools learned during the Open Desig Course 2022. The project consisted of creating a collection of murals around Ghent using objects and images from the “De collectie van gentenaar” (https://data.collectie.gent/). This one is a free online collection with more than 60,000 pieces, photos and fragments of the heritage of the city of Ghent that includes archives from the Design Museum Gent, Huis van Alijn, Industriemuseum and STAM.
To make the murals I started selecting pieces, photos and objects from the collection and then edited and transformed them into vectors. Then, thanks to a laser cutting machine, I was able to cut the vectors into templates that would later function as stencils for the walls. A stencil is a popular technique to reproduce designs by passing ink. The cut paper allows the ink to paint the surface underneath while respecting the creation of the paper.
Once I obtained all the stencils, I went to different strategic places in the city where the painting is allowed. For the creation of the murals, a specific color palette was considered. Thus, the collection is related not only through the images. The stencils were layered in order to balance the compositions on each wall.
You can see the murals here:
Follow my work: https://www.instagram.com/aish.lola/
