Walking through Realejo in Granada, the old jewish quarter, you will find yourself face-to-face with some truly inspiring street art.
Granada artist El Nino de Las Pinturas is currently in New York, having just finished a gorgeous, four-story high mural in SoHo, NYC. But his work in Granada, while often on a much smaller scale than the NYC project, nonetheless stopped me dead in my tracks over and over.
The artist uses recurring motifs – among them, the half-moon gear stretching across the man’s forehead above – and his commissioned pieces for local stores always allude to the services each business provides. But the artist particularly excels at portraits, often imbuing his murals with a sense of innocence, wonder, and confidence.
The large portrait below, right next to Hotel Molinos, was painted to commemorate the death of a young woman who lived in the neighborhood, shown at the bottom right. My hosts told me that someone painted the wall white after he completed the work, and the artist simply re-painted it again.
His works seem to draw heavily from childhood and the arts, drawing on imagination as a way to both escape reality and become more real.
If you ever find your way to Granada, take an afternoon to walk through Molinos street in the Realejo neighborhood to see his work. You won’t regret it.
