The spectacular Spanish artist PEJAC occupies a special class of public artists who pushes their medium to new levels. He has painted Spain’s oldest prison with a project that declared the existence of common, uniting humanity. He has installed climate change awareness in the middle of the sea. The artist’s own biography states his commitment to “clever twists on familiar images and skillfully reinventing the public space.” At this moment in history where much of the world is sequestered into isolation and social distancing, one might anticipate the end of public art. Fortunately, artists like PEJAC never stop creating, sharing, and connecting. To this end, PEJAC recently launched his global creative initiative, STAY ART HOME, over social media.
To imbue his time spent on lockdown in Madrid with a sense of meaning, a press release for STAY ART HOME explains that PEJAC “recently revived his old concept of miniature window drawings interacting with the life outside as a way to fulfill his vital need to create.” The artist’s own work, which spurred the greater project, is a mesmerizing downpour of men in gas masks titled “It Can’t Rain All The Time (Social Distancing).” Whether the work depicts many unique individuals or the same man repeated over and over, the viewer cannot tell, because the figures are each covered completely by a hat, goggles, gas mask, and overcoat. This costume suits our current era, where masks are mandated to protect public health, but silent, emotional borders are donned before heading out in public too, for fear of infection. “It Can’t Rain All The Time” gains its most striking visual elements from the artist’s hyperrealistic attention to minute detail, and also from the work’s placement. By painting directly on his window, PEJAC makes the forbidden outside world an active agent in the work, providing contrasts in startling blues or softer grays depending on Madrid’s weather.
“Moved by the fact that half of the world is also confined to their living space,” STAY ART HOME’s press release continues, “[PEJAC] decided to launch an initiative on his social media.” The artist himself notes, “I always believed that everyone has an artist hidden inside and that if you give them a good reason they are capable of doing wonderful things, and in these strange days of global lockdown, I believe that creativity can be one of the best therapies to fight anxiety and boredom.” STAY ART HOME invites the artist’s worldwide audience “to grab their pens, brushes, papers, and scissors, and join him in building a monumental opus of urban art from home.”
Participants try their own hand at PEJAC’s signature window art and submit their creations via the hashtag #STAYARTHOMEPEJAC. Selections are regularly shared in the artist’s Instagram story. “After only a few days the response of the public has been overwhelming with literally hundreds of submissions being sent in from more than 50 countries worldwide and counting,” the press release proclaims. In its mission to showcase talent at this time, “the initiative is poetically standing up to the spreading of the virus. Having a new, simple way to play and create as well as capture and share this unique historic moment seems to be providing participants the feeling of a common shelter from otherwise tough and complex reality.”
The submissions showcased feature a vast array of silhouetted figures often related to the participant’s own isolation experience – outstretched cats are created by the real life muses’ owners, children in tutus are immortalized in art by their parents. Most submissions are playful, evocative of the human spirit’s tender tenacity. STAY ART HOME highlights the most endearing facets of human nature: our drive to play and create when provided the space to do so, and our proclivity to withstand any circumstance the fates hand down.
PEJAC’s biography closes by stating that the artist “has tremendous ability to adapt his work in order to pass a clear and powerful message.” Indeed, adaptation is the name of the game as we all rise to confront this new normal. For street artists, this means adapting the relationship to their predominantly outdoor craft. For so many others, it means adapting our coping mechanisms to a shape of reality we’ve never witnessed before. PEJAC accomplishes this by “using different visual languages, reaching for unconventional tools, or finding alternative ways to present the finished work.” On the other side of this experience is a new, new normal. Exercises in experimentation, playing with our inner artists, means that we’ll each be more flexible when the time comes to face that too.
