Borondo hits London

All photos: NoLionsInEngland

Every once in a while a street artist creates a soaring spectacular piece of street art which resets the benchmark and blows the mind, and recently Spanish artist Borondo did just that with a breathtakingly original piece in Hackney Wick. A little bit of recent history first though, he came to London last Autumn and left behind some tasty new street art.  We were impressed but didn’t realise that was merely starters.


"Narcissus"

The first works we saw were shadowy sketchy figures on the outside of windows, rendered by painting the windows white then scrapping the paint off using a thick touch turtle-shell coloured comb.




He did a set of windows on a building which has been refurbished and opened as a Mexican Cantina. At least it was last week, I haven’t yet been back today.




Further up in the heart of Brick Lane he did this face.




He also dropped a large mural up in old street and then earlier this year painted a gate in Hoxton alongside Jaz.


Borondo



Borondo with Jaz, Hoxton



Now the piece-de-resistance,this stunning, hugely inventive and unusual piece appeared recently beside a canal in Hackney Wick. The idea of painting the face upside down so that its reflection appears the right way un is pure genius, a great example of the use of environment and context in a very unusual way.




Strong winds prevailing over the past month have yielded very few opportunities to get photos of this in still, mirror-like conditions but the upside of the catching ripples on the water is that Barondo’s character becomes animated! Whatever the poor chap is enduring we probably shouldn’t pry into but there is certainly a lot of pain and distress being articulated by the poor chap.


The Many Faces Of Borondo


The art of Borondo does sometimes feature on Shoreditch Street Art Tours - subject to route and the art being there!

Borondo's blog is here

UPDATE: bumped into Borondo again this afternoon, here is a "making of" video by Fabiano Caputo of the Hackney Wick Narcissus.