Spanish Artist Vanesa Álvarez Creates Massive Mural in New York’s Union Square

NEW YORK — The colorful designs of the Spanish artist Vanesa Álvarez will cover nearly 700 square meters of asphalt starting this Wednesday in the center of New York, in Union Square, where a new mural at ground level is located that calls slow down, connect with nature and protect the Earth.

Occupying one lane of the road, the figure of a woman holds a planet and a heart in her hands, and in another lane two women meditate, all of them surrounded by symbols such as butterflies, panthers and plants with which Álvarez pays a “tribute”. to the immigrants, the mothers and the Lenape Indians (originally from Manhattan), as he explained to EFE.

After two days of painting with the help of a team of volunteers, the mural is almost ready to be released from the fences that protect it and make way for the thousands of pedestrians who pass through this point in southern Manhattan, usually populated every day. of tourists, students, bohemian people selling handicrafts and protesters.

“I would like them to think, and reconsider, that before this was green”, says the Galician designer, who has titled her enormous work “Union with the universe” and points out that it addresses the issues of the fight against the climate crisis and feminism, the latter very present in her career.

Álvarez, born in Vigo (Spain) and who has lived in New York for several years, where she has her studio, confesses to believing in the “healing power of art and color” and hopes to leave a mark on those who come into contact with her mural, making some calls to action in English: “slow down” (slow down) and “slow life” (slow life).

“Sometimes we walk around looking at our cell phones and we don’t even pay attention; (I hope) that just seeing those colors lift our spirits and our souls,” adds the Spaniard, who has made other murals throughout the city, including one dedicated to to the Camino de Santiago and another to resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Álvarez declares herself “lucky” to have made her way among many candidates to develop this City Hall public art project, which usually remains on view for about a year until pollution and the elements, especially snow, dull the colors and They summon the next artist.

In this sense, he recognized that “competition is beastly” in the art world in the Big Apple, but “there are also many opportunities”, pointing out that the process of a public call like this “is very democratic” and “anyone can access ” sending your credentials and proposals.