Italian artist Mrfijodor was recently in beautiful Mantua, Italy for this year’s Without Frontiers – Lunetta a Colori 2019 that this year has been hosting artists like mohamed L’Ghacham, Corn79, TemoMiel, Dado, Xena – Fatima de Juan, Mrfijodor and more. The event is curated by Simona Gavioli and Giulia Giliberti.
The theme of this year’s festival is inspired by the book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values (ZAMM), by Robert M. Pirsig, first published in 1974 and that has been acclaimed as a modern epic, transforming a generation and continuing to inspire millions. A narration of a summer motorcycle trip undertaken by a father and his son, the book becomes a personal and philosophical odyssey into fundamental questions of how to live leading to a powerful self-reckoning.
Taking this as a starting point, this years participant artists will infuse their own vision of the world into their work, the ir own experience of art as an interpretation of life.
Titled “Plastic Rain”, the mural depicts a personal interpretation of the plastic pollution problem today. As highlighted by the artist, the production and consumption of plastics, has reached alarming numbers. According to some findings, the annual consumption of plastic bottles is set to top half a trillion by 2021, far outstripping recycling efforts and jeopardising oceans, coastlines and other environments. Rosemary Downey, head of packaging at Euromonitor and one of the world’s experts in plastic bottle production, says that the majority of plastic bottles used across the globe are for drinking water. The problem not only affects the countries where the plastic is produced or consumed. A study of remote Arctic beaches found they were also heavily polluted with plastic, despite small local populations (source).
Plastic Rain shows the image of a tall robot, so tall we can’t see the upper side of the body, standing in the middle of a city that looks like a garbage dump, mainly filled by plastic waste that falls from the sky like unstoppable rain. In the center of the scene we see to a father with his son busy adjusting the giant robot. According to the artist, the robot is no more than an archetype of life, a dream, a passion, a desire.
The two protagonists are concentrated working, to the point of not noticing the rain of plastic bottles around them, the boy holds an umbrella to protect his father from the rain, but at the same time remaining unconcerned about the phenomenon. Maybe to highlight the fact that, despite the fact that we know plastic pollutes, we keep consuming it.
The question is; are we ever going to stop?
Mrfijodor
Mr Fijodor’s style is more like an illustrator of a children’s fantastic tale than what we usually expect from a so-called street artist. His creative career started already as a kid building monsters with LEGO and drawing on his bedroom walls.
His work consists of simple drawings of fantastic creatures that usually convey an easily accessible message based on a simple interpretative key in order to communicate with the observer.
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.
