Aryz

“I feel it’s really aggressive when you paint in a public space, so I don’t really want to play with bright colors”

Aryz is a prominent Spanish artist who made his name in the world of street art through his large-scale murals. Through his creativity, vision, skill, and practice, Aryz converts large building facades into public canvases. His astonishing colossal murals pop questions of what life means, what stories the images tell, and how we can interpret and understand them. Aryz often plays with our minds where the meaning behind these enigmatic images is hard to interpret but sometimes they convey clear narratives and messages about people’s social lives and everyday problems.

Octavi Serra Arrizabalaga, known by the stage name Aryz, was born in Palo Alto, US. When he was just three years old he moved to Spain where he continued to live. Educated in Cardedeu (Barcelona) and graduated in Fine Arts from the University of Barcelona, Aryz quickly found interest in art, especially street art. His first street artworks came to life around 2000. Those were small works in low-traffic areas and abandoned spaces, where he painted just for fun. “When I was at high school, I met some guys who were break dancing and listening to hip hop and I started to hanging around with them, one day they said „let’s go paint some wall”. We went to buy some sprays and we went painting… We just did a really huge mess… I tried to go and fix it the next day… but it ended even worst. Since then it’s been like a personal challenge.” Over the years, his work gained notoriety and recognition, and he began to participate in urban art festivals around the world. Today, his astonishing murals are gracing the streets all over the world.