Mural Art: Miss Van
Storytelling: Oana Maroti

A meeting between two cultures that bring together a diversity of flowers, fruits, vegetables, fashion, and songbirds.

One of the two women is disguised as a man, wearing a beak mask and epaulets on a sal, a scarf derivation of the sari fashion. The woman masked as a bird seems to support her friend, as she appears so sad, that hair grows from her eyes and olive oil plants come out of her head. She transforms, slowly becoming nature, perhaps to make sure that there is a way out. Her blouse recalls the ancient goddess, but the accessories, the hairstyle, and the connection with nature update in the files of my imagery of the Eastern European fairies who put some epaulets on the blouses and are presented to the court.

Miss Van challenges the viewer by exposing the history of fashion and botany, with strong accents of gothic and surrealist aesthetics, and transports us to the mystery and terror novel history. It is a complex painting, which I have admired for years now. I have taken many photos, not very good ones, but with different lights, phones, and seasons.

This mural was made in 2016, in Carrer Lepant, Barcelona for the FemGraff festival and it´s still there, intact, near the bus station, facing the metro station.

I was first attracted by the artist's decision to paint on a copper-colored wall, that is, the thermal insulation of the wall, which gives the buildings a rusty, abandoned appearance, but which also has a strong autumnal color, a seasonal color that I know as aramiu and that is seen in abundance in the deciduous forests (paduri de foi) that look to be on fire, during fall.

I used to walk by to admire this graffiti painting and exclaim: Phanthomas, The Phantom of the Opera, Poe, Molière, Mademoiselle Du Parc, The Marquise, The Mask, Lupin, Voltaire, Apollinaire and The Portrait of Fruits. A mural art that has numerous references to international literature and human rights fighters.

The cross-dressed woman and her bird mask recall the carnival, but what I see in the painting is an underground philosophy created to sustain those people who are consumed alive, those voices who are silenced, those tears who are forbidden.

Women in captivity are transforming as a defense mechanism and the underground shows that transformation.