(Istanbul) The French artist Saype, known for his monumental frescoes around the world, unveiled on Friday a new work painted on the ruins of the Turkish city of Antakya, destroyed by the earthquake which devastated the south of Turkey.
His black and white fresco – two intertwined hands, his trademark – is spread over 1000 m2, where until the night of February 6 stood buildings of four to five floors with ground floors occupied by a pastry shop, a tailor or a glazier.
Before the 7.8 magnitude quake which left more than 50,000 dead in Turkey, nearly half of them in the province of Antakya, “it was a street that was very lively,” Guillaume Legros told AFP , said Saype.
“When there was the earthquake, I was affected. I went there in July and I hallucinated, I realized the extent of the disaster,” continues the French artist whose wife was born in Turkey.
He then decided to set up a project “in support” of the survivors of the earthquake, in the ruins of this centuries-old city made unrecognizable by the earthquake of February 6.
“I worked directly on rubble, on people’s (old) houses, on family photos. Painting on stones is something I had never done,” confides the thirty-year-old artist, known until now for his paintings on grass.
During his 16 days there, he rubbed shoulders with the residents who remained there and who have been living for eight months in tents or containers: “We met lots of people, who previously lived in the apartments on which we painted, people who came to pick up things.”
“They were surprised, but they thanked us for coming,” he assures, saying that through his work he wanted to shine the spotlight back on the city of Antakya and the needs of the survivors.
The artist now plans to sell prints of his fresco to raise funds for earthquake victims.
