Oral AMC - KOBRA

AMC – KOBRA

Eduardo Kobra, often just called Kobra, was born in 1976 in Sao Paul, Brazil. When he was younger, he didn't like school and enjoyed drawing on his notebooks at the back of the classroom. At the age of 11 he started to go out in the street, because for him it was a good way to socialize with people of his age. When he was 15 he discovered graffiti and joined a well-known break dance group in Sao Paulo. He was influenced by the hip-hop trend from the United-States, and started to cover walls with tags at night. His parents were afraid that he would end up in jail but thanks to his age he was always released. After all, Eduardo will become more responsible, get a decent job and study banking but will never be satisfied.

He continued to learn about art, painting and graffiti by devouring every book and film he could find. Kobra then left his office to set up his studio, which opened in 1995. His studio is  located in Vila Madalena. There, he will create the sketches that will be his works on the walls. In order to propose realistic and attractive fresco, he will work upstream on the techniques of painting, 3D and graphic design. However, he will not create his works alone. He will be accompanied by two assistants to be able to paint such large frescoes, on walls of more than 1000m2.

His first works were done in Brazil in the 2000s namely with the Walls of Memories project which I will talk about later. it was in 2012 that he started to be famous with his work "Kiss in Times Square" in New York. This grafiti symbolises the day of the US victory over Japan and became a symbol of victory and love.

 At the beginning of his career his work was in black and white. He decided to put colour later on. Using kaleidoscopic patterns with psychedelic colours, he created singular works of great beauty.

 He will create several types of works throughout the world, today there are 500 of them in 17 different countries.

He will create very realistic paintings, often based on famous photographs of celebrities such as Nelson Mandela, Gandhi, John Lennon, David Bowie, Bob Marley, Edith Piaf but also Salvador Dali, Albert Einstein and Jean Michel Basquiat whom he admires a lot. All of them are outstanding figures of the contemporary era or symbols of peace.

Kobra fights every day for different issues, as: global warming, environmental protection, bullfighting, excessive sin, but above all war. In the area of New York, in the lower east side  he painted "stop guns”. This fresco represents a child holding a phone and a gun in his other hand, and behind him the symbols stop guns. This work is intended to alert Americans (and others) to the dangers of guns, especially to children.

He will also realize "Stop wars" still in New York, where he will denounce the war through C-3PO, a famous robot of star wars. Finally, he also painted Albert Einstein on a bicycle, holding a sign that tells us "peace is equal to love squared".

We can observe that the artist often uses a famous character to link him to his cause. He always adds his signature on his works which is the domination of red and yellow.

Kobra will undertake several projects such as the "Walls of Memory": he says that "the idea is to transform the urban landscape through art and to revive the memories of the city" in the cities where he is invited to express his talent, through paintings that mix nostalgia and modernity.  The first one that he made was In Sao Paulo, in the 2000s, a black and white painting, that repport the story of the city. After, he painted “the brave of 11th of September” in order to pay homage to the firemen who fought and died during the attacks, and mark the city of New York with this event.

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