Italian artist Eron, a true virtuoso of spraypaint art, recently took part 2018 edition of the Wall in Art project in Camonica Valley in Italy, with a captivating mural intervention titled, Soul of the Wall. Painted on the facade of the former school building in Cevo, Camonica Valley, the goal of this creation is to both commemorate the history of the village, as well as to serve as a reminder to the tragic nature of war.
In times when Italian and global politics are taking a strong turn towards the language of hate and intolerance, Eron's work regularly takes reference from the historic events. For this wall, he decided to compose an image that will evoke the fire that occurred in Cevo on July 3, 1944. This fusion between painting and optical illusions inspired by the perceptual phenomenon known as pareidolia, a common element in Eron's work, constructs a moving vision of the aftermath of an arson committed by the Wehrmacht and Italian Fascist forces. Aside of the most obvious image of white doves flying through the windows of the burnt building, the facade hides poetic images depicting the life of locals around that time—portrait of school teacher Maddalena Bazzana, her father, Bartolomeo Cesare Bazzana, during document check, a soldier holding his lover, and a lonely soldier hiking the Alps. The idea of this composition is not only to show the darkest, most obvious consequences of war, but also the tragic effects on the everyday lives of common people, while leaving a message of hope through the symbol of white doves.
This mural continues Eron's impressive series of works that talk about injustice, history, migration crisis, all done using the striking technique and visual language he developed over the years. Wall in Art is an ongoing project that aims to create a series of public art pieces throughout the Valley of Signs, representing its historic openness to artistic expression from the Roman times, the Middle Ages, all the way to the contemporary time. —Sasha Bogojev
Photo credits by Eron & Bassanesi
