Everything comes to an end.
It seems like only yesterday that I saw Addfuel painting his first mural in Rome, and consequently met the Forgotten team, and now, a few crazy adventures later, it’s already time to say goodbye. The last Portuguese street artist that we have invited to paint his first mural in Rome was Daniel Eime, and he arrived just one week before the group exhibition at MACRO Testaccio, so our schedule was a bit hectic –but you should know by now that that’s how we like it.
Eime painted the portrait of an old lady on the wall of the Flaminio II market, but actually for the first three days he worked indoors cutting all the stencils he needed to shape the lady’s face.
That’s when I realized that, with such a detailed mural, cutting the stencils is half the work. Looking at those squares of paper, it was impossible for me to guess what the final image would look like.
The only evident thing was that Daniel’s work requires a big dose of patience, focus and attention to the smallest details, which, as I happened to discover later in the week, is also how he approaches life. His calm and peaceful attitude, in fact, helped me to survive one of the most hectic weeks ever, as looking at him carefully painting one tiny spot after another pushed me to face one problem at a time, which helped the week move forward smoothly.
In fact, his way of working is kind of meditative, which –perhaps- is also the reason why his characters, whether they are melancholic or ironic, always look very calm, as if glowing with some kind of inner awareness.
A peaceful feeling that fills the whole composition and manages to tell us everything through a single gaze with no need to add any kind of context to the portrait. I found this very ironic as Daniel studied as a set designer, and scene design is something he is still very passionate about.
From Daniel I learnt that to achieve a goal you must be patient and work thoroughly. You must focus on each and every minute detail, as even the smallest one matters, but without forgetting the big picture. Like with Daniel’s minimal dots, every tiny aspect of our lives matters and it’s by taking care of each single dot that we end up composing that intricate big picture that is our personality.
And I guess this is the teaching I’m bringing home from this experience, now that it’s time to turn over a new leaf and write down a new chapter of my life: to focus on one leaf after another, without losing the sense of the overall story.
Rome Street Art Map:
Find this mural (and many more!) in my Rome Google Map!
Enjoy the making-of video of Eime’s first mural in Rome:
