Favela - Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (photo Natacha Giler) 2011

Here we see a mural made in Rio de Janeiro by the French artist Speedy Graphito. Look at how these shapes—words, flowers, and bunnies—have all come together in black, red, and white stripes, like they're escaping from a candy cane factory! You know, making a mural is a bit like composing a song with colors and forms instead of notes. I can just picture Speedy Graphito up here on the wall, working away. How many layers of color and line did it take to reach this point? Did he plan it all, or let things just flow? I'm really drawn to how he's mixed up the recognizable with the abstract here. Those bunnies are so cute and friendly, but the way they're embedded in this swirl of text and pattern makes them feel like they're part of some bigger message, something hidden just beneath the surface. Speedy Graphito is in dialogue with so many street artists and muralists, each riffing off of one another's ideas in a global game of visual tag.