German Bel Fasim

German Bel Fasim - Landscapes of the Huerta I

Técnica: Mixed technique on thick canvas / 100% cotton

Biografía del Artista: Germán Bel, alias Fasim, was born in Barcelona in 1972. He is a pioneering urban artist in Spain, active since the 1980s. Henry Chalfant played an important role in Fasim's career and would be a key figure in his later artistic development. In 1989 he met Futura 2000 at an exhibition held at the Arcs&Cracs gallery in Barcelona, ​​where he learned about artistic creations on canvas and his beginnings in urban art, now known as street art, in Europe. In 1992, the artist travelled to Paris to the studio of Jonone and the BadBC at the Hôpital éphémère where he stayed for a few days and observed the process of creation on canvas and the appearance of urban art in art galleries. He also joined the legendary crew 156allstarz. Fasim's paintings take us to a dreamlike world where the game of pareidolias seems to dominate the surface of the works. Since he was a child, he has maintained this visual and poetic game of the gaze, with the shapes of any surface, whether in the pattern of a tile or in the damp stains, erasures or peeling of any urban wall. To a large extent, this game is the first inspiration for the Paleolithic artists in the caves, where the images appeared in the reliefs of the rocks and is the cradle of painting. Fasim has painted on numerous walls, exhibitions and displays in many cities around the world; Barcelona, ​​Valencia, Madrid, Toulouse, Perpignan, Marseille, Paris, New York, Berlin, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Milan, Naples or Sarajevo among others. The Museum of European and Mediterranean Civilisations (MuCEM) recently acquired three paintings and six drawings, which will be included in the Urban Art collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art of Marseille (MAC). “(…) New York City police and officials claimed in the 1970s that graffiti was a gateway crime that led to a career in crime. How wrong they have been. I have observed that an apprenticeship in graffiti has led more than a few teenage taggers and bombers to find brilliant careers as painters, designers, editors and filmmakers. I find no better example of this phenomenon than Fasim.”Henry Chalfant