Staff Graffiti Writers Unite to Paint a Huge Mural at the New MTN Warehouse

It’s no secret that Montana Colors is growing fast and with it, our physical premises  in the mountains outside Barcelona. One of the advantages of renting new warehouse space is having the liberty to create large scale murals on the sides of the buildings, and last month a truly epic jam was arranged to fill an entire wall measuring about 1500 m2. 

Coinciding with the annual party for the Montana Colors staff, the event saw 18 artists associated with Montana Colors in Barcelona make a supermarket sweep in the paint warehouse before being let loose on the wall. The only rules? Fill the surface in a day. 

MTN OG Kapi was in charge of coordinating this band of vandals, and he explained to MTN News.

The other murals painted by Montana Colors installations consist of works by regular artists or collaborations, such as Os Gemeos and Nina, DabsMyla and Pichiavo. Why was the new warehouse painted with the help of so many artists? 

Montana Colors CEO Jordi Rubio liked the idea of ​​creating a wall with the improvised style that you see when you drive into cities, on the walls of circular roads. He thought of idea and we took it from there, it sounded good.

What was the criteria for choosing the artists to participate? 

The artists are some of the Barcelona-based graffiti writers associated with Montana Colors. It’s the first time they’ve ever been brought together in a single day. There are different generations of writers: from the pioneering era of the 80’s, artists from the 90’s, and of course, writers who started in the 21st century.

What guidance or conditions did the artists have? 

The idea was to try to replicate the same aesthetic that the walls of the roads that surround Barcelona have, so the conditions or limitations had that in mind. Size was an essential part for everything to fit together well. We wanted to limit the colors and quantities of paint a bit as well, although this last part wasn’t too strict and in the end everyone participated adapting to their own ideas. 

There were some quick pieces with two fill colors and no background alongside highly detailed pieces with intricate color schemes, backgrounds and characters.

Is there a piece that surprised you? Any detail of the final composition that stood out? 

I was surprised to see the work of some of my colleagues whose style I wasn’t familiar with, and it was a surprise to see their technique and style. Others did more or less what I’d expected.

The aesthetic of the final mural has generated comparisons with the legendary 5 Pointz Hall of Fame of New York. What would your assessment of the project be? 

That comparison was almost accidental because we hadn’t originally imagined that final result, rather something faster and simpler. But some artists decided to invest more time in their creations and ended up doing more complex pieces. The fact that they were painted on top of each other gave it that 5 Pointz look more than the classic throw ups stacked up on the walls of freeways. 

I was always going to be happy with the result. In fact I had no expectations, nor was there a clear aesthetic goal. There were 18 of us who paint differently, one on top of the other and trying to control that diversity would have been counterproductive and not much fun. 

The highway reference that had been suggested at the beginning was more to express the capacity that writers have to adapt to spaces and make color grow on a wall in an organic, natural way. That’s what happened in the end and the result was really impressive.

Wanna know more about the heritage of Montana Colors? We Were There explains it all.