A few weeks ago, Antonio Segura Donat, widely known to the street art community as Dulk, returned to the area where his career began to embark upon his latest work, titled “The Summit”. This large-scale mural marks the artist’s first endeavor of this size in the industrial university city of Alcoy, Spain, located near Valencia and the country’s west coast.
Dulk holds close tie to this area of Spain, where he abandoned his original plan to pursue a diploma in economics at the University of Valencia in order to study “illustration then graphic design” instead, according to the artist’s own biography. Dulk completed “The Summit” for a city-wide event hosted in part by Urban Skills, an entity with a self-described mission of “promoting urban culture in Alcoy. He also thanks his friend Fran Picazo for “[making] it possible.” In conjunction with this event, “The Summit” was completed in approximately one week, on October 1st.
This momentous, large-scale mural breathes new life into an already vibrant facade. Its startlingly electric colors compliment the building’s rich goldenrod hue, creating a visual asymbiotism between the mural and its home. Each component serves to magnify the beauty of the other. This choice of color scheme maintains consistency with Dulk’s established style, a refined blend of ultra-realistic wildlife depicted in a vivid, fantasy-like fashion.
The subject matter also stays true to Dulk’s artistic history. He is a renowned animal rights activist, with a passion for animals dating back to his child. His biography recounts, “As a child, [Dulk] helped his father to feed the birds they reared at their home. He loved watching the fledglings and seeing them grow, as well as the fish, dogs, and horses that lived on the property. When he wasn’t out and about, he copied illustrations of exotic animals that he found in his parents’ collection of old encyclopedias. And he took his sketchbook with him everywhere from then on.” His work promotes awareness and activism by portraying the mystical nature of the myriad creatures that roam our planet.
The bright colors Dulk implements in “The Summit” quickly lose their dazzling brilliance upon concentrated viewing though, their glow turns menacing. The scene’s tone reads chaotic, almost apocalyptic. Each exaggerated animal figure, from the cerulean anteaters in the foreground to the overpowering Panda/mountain hybrid that serves as the work’s central figure, wears a face of palpable fear.
The sky’s glow signifies an inferno rather than an evening sunset sky ablaze. The ground seems to be a sea of molten lava. Dulk sprinkles subtle skulls throughout the work. An arrow impales the bullseye on the aforementioned Panda’s cheek. Suddenly, the viewer notices many other animals like the bird and tiger also have these targets on their faces. Evidently, they all face a swarm of malignant forces assaulting them.
The statements made by an image such as this are relatively clear, though Dulk expresses their complexity and drama in a unique way, through his implementation of a fantastical approach. These imperiled animals look like storybook characters upon first glance. This juxtaposition of innocence and evil only heightens the horror one experiences upon realizing the reality of the situation. The viewer can only hope that Dulk’s lighthearted approach could also translate as optimistic. Can these friends possibly be saved? Ultimately, the piece’s final conclusion rests in each viewer’s personal perspective.
Dulk testifies to this approach further in his own words, explaining that he is “always looking at things from the same innocent viewpoint that he is so fond of – That of a child” and through this lens, seeks to craft “tragi-comic animal themed works in organic colours.” He accomplishes this in various mediums, from murals and paintings to small sculptures. As we see in “The Summit” these scenes often feature “surrealistic landscapes full of imaginary details, rising up in factions against humans.” He surmises, “maybe they are wanting to warn us of Earth’s bleak future following an environmental catastrophe.”
“The Summit” marks an important step in Dulk’s career, due to its size, location and emotional ambition. Despite its relatively fun-loving style, this work is one of the artist’s darkest, most foreboding efforts to date, featuring endless imagery of an impending catastrophe. It will be interesting to see if Dulk amplifies this message’s potency as the environmental situation progresses from imminent to direly urgent.
