Anón
Category: Artist/Individual
Discipline: Public Art
Program Affiliations: Artist Roster | SaludArte
As Anón, husband and wife artist team Jhonattan and Samantha Arango create highly organic murals and paper art using only the rigid shapes of triangles. Their work —which often includes portraiture and imagined landscapes— is an exploration into the subject of interconnection, and rudimentarily mimics the function of triangles as the most fundamental fabric of reality. With often thousands of triangles to tell the story, it becomes apparent to see how each piece, regardless of color and size, is an integral part of the whole.
Their inspiration takes root in a developing understanding of the desire to attain happiness as a human commonality. With this base, triangles help them narrate intricately woven stories on the subject of peace, harmony, and unconditional love. Their work is an ode to the threads that connect all 7.8 billion people to each other and everything else in existence.
Besides making solo murals, they work with a community format that allows for audiences to paint murals together. Through this exploration they have facilitated projects where hundreds of spectators become the artists, using art as an agent for peaceful community building.
Created for CRE8IVE 2023 mural festival in Rockford, Illinois, this mural sought inspiration in the site’s proximity to some of the breathtaking landmarks nearby, such as the Nicholas Conservatory, the Anderson Japanese Gardens, and the lush charm of the Sinnissippi Park. We also wanted to frame a moment in time that exudes simplicity, but that also conveys the complex, inextricable connection exhibited by all living beings. The title Coevolution is an ode to this relationship; the pollinator is so connected to the flower that it becomes difficult to imagine one without the other. They are coded within each other’s most fundamental needs, fully interdependent. It’s a partnership that bears fruit over lifetimes, also affecting the way in which these biological processes physically evolve, behave, think, and live. Stylistically, the composition is entirely made up of triangles connected by their edges, also speaking to the interconnection of all things. With thousands of triangles telling this story, it becomes apparent to see how each piece, regardless of color and size, is an integral part of the whole.
Commissioned by the Arts Council of Wilmington, North Carolina, this mural serves as the “last piece” of a newly renovated historic space in the heart of downtown Wilmington and also as downtown’s first large scale mural. Originally the site for North Carolina’s first movie theater, Bijou Park is now a connecting corridor linking their Main Street to the river front and a convenient, beautiful respite from the city’s hustle and bustle. The narrative pays homage to the movie theater while highlighting North Carolina’s natural “jewels” (Bijou means small, precious jewel), and offers a nod to this pocket park as downtown’s newest “hidden gem.” This massive piece had a community component in which over 500 people helped paint the mural over the course of a weekend.