Eye of the Beholder - CCC's Street Art Contest #160

Good evening to the whole Street Art Fans community!

Welcome to my entry for the #160 competition!

Today, my mum invited me to join her for a snack and a walk around the neighborhood. It's not something I usually do, walking the streets around my house, except for when I go shopping at the supermarket, which I do almost exclusively on foot, or when I go to the gym, which is less than 3 kilometers away.

Well, lo and behold, I was surprised... And I'll tell you why! After a lovely sugar-free coffee accompanied by a fantastic pastel de nata (toasted and topped with cinnamon powder), I decided to take a walk to the neighboring parish. But the route we decided to take was not the most commonly chosen one, which turned out to be a nice surprise... We arrived at the "Salgueiro Maia" urban park, an infrastructure that was reopened in 2012 but had its face washed in 2016 during Youth Month.

This mural, created by the artist Gonçalo Ribeiro, captures our imagination, both in the lightness of the feather... an ancient writing instrument that many poets have carried on their fingertips, transporting an entire ethereal message to a cellulose support, so that this message could free them from their own bonds, and also in its ensemble, the plumage necessary for birds to conquer and defy gravity... Leading the most ordinary of men to dream of their freedom to conquer the skies, describing them in the same style as poets do on paper, arcs, peaks, leaps of a ballet that somehow has nothing random about it, seeming to become like a spell blown in the wind, which makes those who whisper it a master of lightness and clamour for their exploits translated into writing and eternalised by the printers, who reproduce and translate the drawings into concrete and well-defined forms, passing them on in book form. (Gonçalo Ribeiro a.k.a. MAR)

Human kind always takes wisdom very seriously. And since this is a senior educational institution, a senior university, the owl was the element found by the artist to exalt the maxim that is most valued in these facilities... Learn until you die, right? Well, do you know why the owl is associated with wisdom? The association dates back to Greek mythology. The goddess of wisdom and war was Minerva. She was accompanied by her favorite animal, an owl. However, this feathered animal may not have gained this status because of the preference of the Greek gods, but because of its very nature. The owl is known for silently observing everything around it, for its wisdom in its surroundings, and for acting only when it feels the need to do so.

The presence of Wisdom and War in the same Greek Goddess Minerva is interesting. But looking at what is happening today in a place very close to Portugal... just 4100 kilometers away, we want the Wisdom of resisting and knowing how to study the opponent's movements to translate into discreet, silent and effective action. Excuse my way of taking the subject to this side, but it is absolutely impossible for me not to mention it in this context of intelligence and wisdom.

Interestingly, the repetition of the eye as the feather's pattern, as if the observer were observing, is a thought that may be about to leave the world of imagination and be materialized in a dance of a "feather" on virgin paper...

In a cartoonish way, we can still see today, in the 21st century, that many people are controlled by the information they receive, and how they receive it... clouding their ideas, thoughts and even ideologies. For a world in which Information is free, accessible, and for all people to have universal access to education... This is a dream that I would like to one day come true... Believe me, if that were to happen, many Wars would end, or not even start!

I leave you the link to one of Metallica's best songs. The lyrics are simply superb, and the rudeness orchestrated by the guitars and drums that scream at full decibels make it even more unique!