Argentinian street artist Fio Silva painted her debut wall in London in Croydon’s Arts Quarter yesterday afternoon. Fio Silva is curently over as the winner of an international competition, the Spring Projects ‘Next Big Thing’, to search for a relatively unknown street artist to come to London and paint for Femme Fierce Reloaded and gain the attention of the global street art scene. This was Fio’s UK debut, having previously painted in Milan, marking her first international works outside South America. Fio’s work derives from a “love to paint animals in fusion with organic things like leaves, branches, trees … I love to paint things that are moving, they are not static things, they mutate to become that change”, (quote from Inspiringcity.com). Fio painted the piece with a series of brushes and built up her piece, which is very much as one would expect driven by South American artistic styles, but to stop there would be to sell her unfairly short. Her work is unique to anything we have thus far reported on from London’s street art scene, which certainly is representative of a global street art movement, and is just fantastic to witness upon.
Despite the cold winter weather in London, which clearly was a shock to Fio, having left South America for the first time on this trip, she spent the afternoon blending her colours from her paint pots before adding the defining black outlines and features to tie the work together. In the process Fio Silva has created a creature that is a combination of varying organic, fluid and natural components, set to a beautiful colour palette. This is one of the stand out pieces of art currently in London and certainly in Croydon’s Arts Quarter We at London Calling can’t wait to see what else Fio Silva produces while in London and hope it’s not to long before she returns. Thanks for your time and letting us watch you work Fio.
Members of Croydon’s public stopping by to admire Fio at work.
Fio Silva posing satisfied by her finished work.
The finished piece.
Fio will be painting in the Turnpike Lane area of North London today, the Shoreditch Art Wall opposite the iconic Village Underground on Saturday and the Femme Fierce Reloaded event on Sunday for International Women’s Day. This is an artist who was a delight to watch at work and an absolute pleasure to meet, we here at London Calling wish her nothing but the best, her art speaks for itself, it is exceptional. The local community of Croydon were certainly impressed, with many members of the public by stopping the admire and compliment her work, and we don’t doubt this interest will only increase as her works appear around London.
For more information on Fio Silva check out this great post by InspiringCity.com
It was very lovely to have read and look at each picture individually. She truly takes pride in her work and is careful with her strokes. As if each one represents her emotions, thoughts, and embodies the Latin American culture. I absolutely love her!