This is skateboarding. Fuck the rest.

Weekend in Oman. Friends visiting on a Volcom skate tour and 20mt. jumps to the Sink Hole. And some quick characters.

Found a big wall in the heart of Istanbul, perfect spot.
We bought a cheap ladder and some paint.

Döner Head!

More Istanbul

Rumeli Feneri is a small and beautiful fishermen village in North Turkey, right where the Black Sea meets the Bosphorus. It’s ran by humble and friendly fishermen, but now they are super pissed at the government because they are building this insanely ginormous bridge (on the 2nd photo) that will destroy their cute town, because it will come with an urban plan that includes malls, apartments everywhere, lots of cars, increasing of prices, Gucci belts, yatchs, silicone breasts, and many other annoying things related with the big change. Sad.

Anyways, I painted a mermaid.

Expedition to Prince Islands, in Turkey.
After a ferry trip from Istanbul and a good siesta, Erbil, Erim and myself rented some bikes (no cars are allowed) and went all over the Buyukada island until we found this amazing abandoned mansion on the sea side. In a second and a half we were inside making up stories of ghosts and creepy murders like good kidults.

I painted in one of the big rooms this dude having fun with a ghost, riding on it all over this alleged haunted house.
Why cannot ghosts be good friends?

Sleepy? Make a drawing in the morning, turn it into a screenprint, print some fabrics, let master Erbil sew them, fill them and in the afternoon you will have pillows.

Some of the cool things that happen in Istanbul.

My friend Erbil from StreetArt Istanbul invited me to visit his amazing city when we met in Dubai last year. He told me about the spots for painting and the activities at his studio Bitti Gitti, including screenprinting, book sharing, design, experiments with glowing paint, pinhole cameras and all kinds of DIY creative stuff.

Exciting, innit? That’s why I’m here.
Some first impressions of the city above.

In a place like Dubai, where 80% is sand and 20% is concrete is hard to find good pieces of wood, so when I find them they become treasures to me. This is the last one that I found, close to Tashkeel, in Nad Al Sheba, more or less where those camels in the photo were.

I continue focused on the totem line, this one was engraved by laser first, then hand painted. Edition of one. Contact Tashkeel if interested

Facebook contacted me to paint a wall in their brand new Middle East offices in a flashy 40th floor of a building in Media City, Dubai.
I made this artwork before the official opening, and it is a big mosaic of characters representing connectivity, islamic culture and what I really think of Facebook.

As usual, you meet interesting people while sharing endless nocturnal hours on spray fumes like Richard (or Ricardo), a security guard from Filipinas with an artist soul, he played some classic r'n'r tunes on my lil guitar while I was painting, we did some amazing duets like ‘The house of the rising sun’ and he also paints some impressionist art on his day off. Or CobraSnake (I never understood his real name), a cleaner from India who has two girlfriends, two of the guettoest tattoos I’ve ever seen and doesn’t eat things that make ’mooooooo’ or ’eeeeeick’ according to his religion.

Oman’s local heros Taher and Chindy came to Dubai some months ago for my solo show in Tashkeel, we met there for the first time. I was so impressed that they did all the way from Muscat just to see my artworks (5-6 hours by car) that couple weeks later me and my friends Edu and Roberto decided to make the same road trip back to Muscat to chill with them and discover Oman in three days.

I’m working my ass off to have 3 new pieces ready for Art Dubai, so please come along to Tashkeel booth at Art Dubai from 19-22 March, stand A6.

See you there my friends!

Paco de Lucía era único. Aunque sólo le ví una vez en vivo y nunca le conociese en persona puedo decir que le sentía como a alguien cercano. Quizá sea porque su música me ha acompañado en momentos muy personales, ha sido la banda sonora de mi trabajo en muchas ocasiones, y creo que sabía entender en momentos lo que él quería transmitir con su guitarra. Quizá por eso siento que tenía cierta comunicación con él.

Paco nadó contracorriente, al igual que lo hizo Camarón o Sabicas, peleando con los flamencos más conservadores (aunque ya dominase a la perfección todos los palos flamencos) con el objetivo de abrir el flamenco hacia nuevos horizontes creativos, incluyendo nuevos instrumentos y técnicas que en su día fueron tomadas casi como blasfemias. Hoy, gracias a su visión, personalidad y técnica, está en ese sitio donde pocos músicos tienen la suerte de estar.
Llámalo mejor guitarrista del mundo, llámalo una persona que transmitía cómo pocos mediante su toque. Aquí queda su legado.

Gracias por tantos momentos, descansa en paz jefazo y pásalo bien con Camarón y Morente ahí arriba.

On my last day in Jordan, we went to the Za'atari refugee camp to paint this quick mural with Herakut, my next-to-last wall during this trip.

Za'atari camp is the second largest refugee camp in the world, with around 120.000 refugees and counting. Most of them kids.
Last week we also pimped wheel barrels with them, the same they use to work for their famiiles.

Million thanks to AptArt, Acted, Echo and Unicef for making this possible. It has been totally amazing.

Much love to all the crew: Sam, Leah, Luc, Jon, Jasmin, Falk, Bahaa, Rozan, Fayez, Mickey, Giorgio and many  more. Hope to see you guys again.

Some photos stolen from Akut.

We came across this family while looking for walls in the Syrian border, close to Za'atari refugee camp.
I totally fell in love with them, they didn’t stop joking and laughing their ass off for a second, so we decided to spend the day with them. We played a lot, we had tea and coffee and also we painted their half-destroyed house with the help of the kids.

Friendship has no landmarks.

Ajloon is a beautiful beige city in the north of Jordan, not too far from the Syrian border. There’s plastic bags and garbage everywhere, like in the rest of Jordan, but it’s nice.
Sometimes there’s beef between Jordanians and Syrians, but they generally get along with each other, building strong and interesting links. After seeing a few of this relationships, and also mines with Jordanians, Syrians and worldwide people during this trip I came out with this design. Khalas. 

Life comes from a water drop. Mafraq, North Jordan.
Hygiene is a big issue in kids over here, through murals like this one we explain to the kids the importance of having good hygiene habits and saving water as they get involved in the painting.

Books can take you everywhere
Irbid, North Jordan.