Thursday Salute to Originals: Masterpieces Hung Where You Can See
Mona Lisa’s smile lost in the crack of a brick wall in Brooklyn. Van Gogh hung perfectly on a break wall at the beach. Wouldn’t it be great if your museum favorites could be found anywhere?
Go to any art museum and the walls are lined with painted canvases. It’s a common construction – a specific type of cloth stretched over a wooden frame. Malaga-based painter Julio Anaya Cabanding is obsessed with framed canvases, but none of his work is presented in a museum or even on canvas, painting directly on the surfaces themselves.
Cabanding likes to take the type of work you would typically see in a museum and move it into the real world. He “steals” traditional, even famous paintings from museums, recreating the art in visually unique areas that are difficult to access. From the walls of abandoned buildings to large slabs of concrete on the beach, Cabanding can make anything into a canvas.
Each piece is hand painted – even the frame. His shadows and ornate frame details are so precisely rendered, many people who see the photos of the work believe that they are just a clever Photoshop trick. In person, the paintings appear to be carefully leveled and hung as if they were on the wall of a museum.
When viewed in the context of their environment, Cabanding’s work becomes more visually interesting. Viewing an expensive looking, perfect condition painting against the backdrop of graffiti or a crumbling building is odd. Yet, art is inspired by the real world, and seeing the subject in the context of earthly surroundings inspires a new way to see these classics that would otherwise be a controlled indoor experience.
This Thursday, we’re saluting Julio Anaya Cabanding’s hand-painted street art – the artist who makes the world his canvas.
Sources: Julio Anaya Cabanding, This is Colossal