Swiss street art duo NEVERCREW once again succeed in simultaneously evoking the “direct impact and a slow and deep reaction” they cite on their website with their newest work, simply titled “Cluster” in Novara, Italy. With this work, NEVERCREW continues to focus on society’s murky relationship with nature, harnessing the profound power of their trademark, abstract style to portray “the perception that mankind has of the environmental situation, of the actual connection with the overall balance, [and recalling] the need to recognize and overcome the detachment.”
A statement released by NEVERCREW asserts the work’s impetus, explaining that “in an era full of images, information, shared knowledge, and open communication there [is] both the opportunity to be aware of multiple matters and an undertone of haze. For the big amount of data on a side and for political systems that keep on validating themselves on the other one, a true relation with a natural reality is often impossible and thus risk to be the understanding of the actual and immense impact humankind had and is having on the Planet.”
“Cluster” places an entanglement of sea creatures resembling whales amongst red blocks highlighting binder clips, familiar symbols of regimentation which many viewers will recognize from their own office spaces. This new mural distinguishes itself from other works completed by the duo in its play between the art itself and the existing features of the facade it has been painted upon. Rebecchi and Togni’s statement elaborates on how they worked with “the particular position of the windows and the location of the wall” to “characterize both the reading of the image, its structure and how people can glimpse it” by creating the illusion of the binder clips where windows already existed. The pair continue to explain that in working with these pre-existing features, they were able to create “visions and layers, playing between real and painted elements, creating a fake dimension in front of the building.” Varying planes of reality highlight the many realities that exist within the world itself and our perception of it.
The contrast of powerful red and blue against the otherwise black and white color scheme seem to enforce this idea of a certain colorful reality lurking between the dull monochromatic perception we hold in our daily lives. The binder clips further heighten this juxtaposition, as their rigid, professional elements seemingly hold the cluster of natural, irregular animals in their state of chaos. Based on this, viewers might find multiple meanings in interpreting “Cluster” including mankind’s inability to fully restrain the powerful forces of nature, and its sorrowful hubris in attempting to do so regardless. Such attempts rob these natural elements of their full beauty, relegating them to a state of woeful entropy.
The artists’ message, nestled into an alleyway in the historic crossroads of commercial traffic that is Novara, relays to the viewer this sense of confusion, and instills the important notion that under the ideals that cloud our minds in everyday life, lies a more complex yet fulfilling truth dictated by the natural world we were originally born into. Try as they might to keep this truth at bay, the strict doctrines of our contrived society can only barely tether this natural reality under the surface. For now, it sits there in a hardly contained state of chaos, waiting to be unleashed and, hopefully, enjoyed.
