Okuda San Miguel - Rainbow Thief

Image taken from: https://okudasanmiguel.com/project/rainbow-thief/

Okuda San Miguel is a contemporary artist based in Madrid. His art is very distinguishable because his artworks consist of intense colours and sharp geometric shapes, which categorizes his art as pop surrealism. His work generally portrays humans, animals, bodies, and symbols that often express the meaning of life, existentialism, the universe, and the false freedom of capitalism. To him, his art is a way of expressing his thoughts, fears, and dreams, making his pieces for himself just as much as they are for the public. 

Okuda earned his bachelor's degree in fine arts at the Complutense University of Madrid. After graduating, he began sharing his art with the public, mainly on very large media such as buildings. One of his projects, for which he is most known, is transforming the ceiling of Kaos Temple, an abandoned church in Spain, into a dome filled with colourful animals, shapes, and faces. This former church is now a famous site for contemporary art lovers, and is also a skate park, The Skate Church. Besides Spain, he has completed artworks in Japan, Chile, Mexico, India, and Hong Kong.

Image taken from: https://okudasanmiguel.com/project/kaos-temple/

Specifically in Hong Kong, he participated in the HKWalls festival in 2016 and painted on a run-down building in Sham Shui Po. This neighborhood is one of the city’s most dense and old areas; it’s so old that it’s known for its urban decay, with the government carrying out many renewal projects. As many old buildings are, most of them are dull to the eye with stains running down the outer walls. Luckily, HKWalls was able to obtain a residential building for Okuda to use as a canvas. The building is covered with a large bear made up of geometric rainbow shapes, and is named “Rainbow Thief”. Despite the colours themselves making the building stand out, the contrast between the dull surrounding structures makes his art pop even more. Okuda’s ability to work on multiple different media, from canvases to buildings, shows his diverse creativity within the artistic world.