This wonderful portrait is the work of Spanish artist Alejandro Dorda Mevs also known as Axel Void and was painted during his participation at Los Muros Hablan 2013 in Puerto Rico.Painted on the side of the Museum of Contemporary Art in San Juan is technically wonderful and so is the concept back the piece; as Axel Voids explains:
Portraits often represent a national hero or a historical figure in the shape of a big mural or a monument. Sometimes we talk portraits about the people that surround us but usually in a more intimate scale through a photograph or an oil painting. This is the idea of this mural. Bringing to light an every day person with the intention of building a symbol that others can relate to.
Charlie is a homeless that sleeps in the street where the museum is placed. He told us he used to be a engineer that worked in the states for 16 years as the leader for the assemble crew of these temperature chambers, where they would simulate different conditions to test the equipment for the NASA. He divorced his wife 20 years ago and has 3 daughters in the states. Since then, he has been living in Puerto Rico, where he was born.
Charlie is now the manager for a parking lot next to the museum. All in all, he was happy about the mural and was going to try to send a photo of it to his daughters. – Axel Void
Image courtesy of the festival.
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.
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