Chilean painter and muralist Inti Castro better known as Inti is currently in Australia where he recently finished this new mural for the Wonderwalls festival in Port Adelaide.
Titled “Our north is the south” the new mural features one of Inti’s signature characters, the kusillo, an innocent looking figure dressed as a clown, but unlike previous works the costume is dark. Dark is also a way to describe the scene as a whole, or better said, the dichotomy between dark and light.
Characterised by their cultural syncretism, Inti’s murals represents the Latin American identity with characters that for some are creepy, while for others a faithful reflection of the life and culture of the continent. Mixing the ancestral culture of the continent with today’s social and cultural issues, his characters reflect about subjects like death, religion, paganism, light and time, inviting to reflexion.
In “Our north is the south” the kusillo is shown graving a skull with his right hand, while a bullet passing by. On the right of the scene we find a broken glass with a rose at its foot, a world globe standing on a three books of different sizes, a plastic bottle (maybe a reference to our time), a couple of dark cherries that seem to float over the books, and the a chilli. Some of them recurrent symbols in Inti’s imagery that refers to both the culture he identifies with. Below a few images of the work, courtesy of the artist.
About the artist
Born in Valparaíso in 1982, Inti Castro is a graffiti artist and muralist whose name, translated into Incan means ‘Sun’. He began painting walls at around the age of thirteen and is today one of the most recognised muralists around the globe. Inti is known for his usually large-scale murals and characters inspired by the syncretism of Latin America’s cultural heritage.
He has painted murals in several cities in Chile and worldwide and has participated in international festivals dedicated to the culture of street and graffiti in Norway, France, Poland, Hawaii and Lebanon amongst others. He was also one of the organisers of the Graffiti festival in Valparaiso that pays tribute to this city characterised as a cultural melting pot. He is also part of a crew named ’Stgo Under’ who he still occasionally paints with.
Author: Fran
Founder and editor of Urbanite. Street Art lover who after the finishing her MA thesis on the Mexican and Norwegian muralist movement in the 1920-50s, developed a fascination for street art and graffiti that eventually led to collaborations with different art blogs, including the creation of this one.
