BLU Research

BLU is an Argentinian street graffiti artist who has been recognized for his work since 1999. His fame began due to his spray paint artwork done in the suburbs of Bologna. During his early years the artist was limited to using spray paint, but in 2001 he started using house paint and large rollers which enabled him to create artwork on a much larger scale. He often collaborated with another artist called Ericailcane, both artists work complemented each other, Blu drew his characteristic human figures, where as Ericailcane made his typical animals. Also during these early years Blu started experimenting with (stop motion) animation. In 2004 art galleries began to notice Blu's potential and asked him to come to their collective shows, the artist declined these requests because he preferred to stay unknown to the official art world. In 2005 Blu began to travel to different countries, spreading his horizons. When he got to South America he painted a large wall, the painting showed a human figure made out of bananas. This was significant to the people that lived there because it related back to when many workers went on strike on banana plantations. The painting was immediately dubbed Hombre Banano which means banana man.

The artist then went from place to place visiting locations such as: Brazil, Costa Rica and Peru, making his mark in each country. In 2007 Blu and a group of other artists such as Ericailcane, Banksy and Mark Jenkins, painted on the wall surrounding Bethlehem that separates the West Bank from Israel. The piece of artwork was painted on a watchtower and shows a man attempting to tear down the "open air prison" with his finger.
Today Blu is a celebrated artist and has stunned many people with his artwork. Some of his most stunning work comes in the form of stop motion animation. The artwork in his animations is painted in the same style as his wall murals. Instead of using a blank canvas to paint each frame onto, Blu chooses to paint on walls and pavements. Once he has drawn a single frame, he blanks out the last frame by painting over it in a bland colour, usually white or grey. This is a very time consuming process and when looking at his animations it is possible to see the days go by, by looking at how quickly the light changes colour in the sky.