April 2010: Esco in São Paolo

When it comes to street art, São Paolo is one of the great South American capitals. As the birthplace of pixaçao, the scene grew rapidly to include different styles. Today, Esco shows us his unique style and shares crazy stories from the field. He writes:

"Well, I first started painting walls when I was nine year old. It was in some college event. But I really started with this graffiti art for about six years ago. I started making pieces on the street with tags and pixo."
"Everytime that I can work with more people, I do. I think that's essential for my work, having friends with me while I'm doing this act. I prefer my best friends at these moments, but if they are not there, i find new company or I go alone."
"I just like painting abandoned house, factories, and places that are forgotten by people. Those place always have a lot of history to share. I try to see those histories and talk about it with my work. For some years, I just drew letters. During those years, I started going to the street and grabbing walls, so letters greatly influence my present work."
"Once, I was on the street bombing doors with a friend when we saw a good wall for this work. However, it was near a cop post. So we thought that if we could make it, it would be very hard but good. So my friend started doing his piece and when we were finishing, we saw many police cars on the street. Now I think that we should have stopped there, but our reaction was to finish faster. When my friend was almost done, I saw six cops getting out and running in our direction. I got REALLY scared, picked up my backpack, and started running across the street. Those cops looked at my friend, but they came for me. That moment, I thought that they woud kill me! I had very bad luck this day. I was running when I saw another police car with some more cops. They looked the situation and came for me too. I crossed a small street and passed by a bar that was with so many people that saw the situation. They started to scream 'THIEF!' 'THIEF!' All of that happened really fast; then a cop started yelling for me to get down on the ground ! I did what they told me and they asked what I was doing running. I told them I was doing graffiti and nothing big happened. They let me go and didn't give me any problems, but the situation was really funny."
"Now I am starting to see how this work can be very big and communicative. I think those letters for me is easier to do, because I can do that anywhere and it's different than my other kind of drawings. It is some kind of graffit work, but it isn't; it has roots of São Paulo 'Pixaçao', but it isn't pixaçao. It is a product of me reading everything I see into urban art. I am a teacher at a prison for kids ages 11-18, so I see art in everything."

Thanks, Esco! For more São Paolo walls, visit his Flickr.