Work has been completed on a new mural in Satka: a huge whale took up “residence” in house No. 3 on the 40 Let Pobedy street.

It is a joint project of the famous traveler, Fedor Konyukhov, the “Sobranie” Fund and the Chelyabinsk graffiti artist, Timur Abdullayev (Brazil). The whale drawn on the wall of a nine-storey house in the Zapadniy microdistrict of the town is a character of one painting by Fedor Fillipovich. The mighty giant followed him during mission in the Pacific Ocean and had a special sunset “ritual” – he rose his tail. This beautiful “gesture” in the rays of red sun is shown in artistic image.

It took Timur Abdullayev one and a half days to draw this 27-meter mural based on the painting by Fedor Konyukhov.

– It is the first time that I interact with Fedor Konyukhov, to be precise, with his art. I have not seen the traveler's paintings before this project. And when the “Sobranie” Fund, with which I have already worked, suggested working in Satka again, I read about him and looked at the photos. This particular work is nice to look at, the painting has interesting texture, color pattern. It has beautiful, vivid lines, says Timur.

Also, there is some kind of a game in the lines. As Timur says, if you watch the drawing from afar, pass in a car or do not look straight on it, you will not “read” that this is a red whale diving into the ocean depicted on the house wall. And when you come closer, it all becomes evident and clear.

The speed of the artist is impressive. However, Timur, who draws really fast and holds a title of the speed graffiti champion, pays not much attention to the fact that he fulfilled the task in exceptionally short time.

– There is nothing difficult in it. The most important is fulfilling all the stages, the most crucial of which is marking – applying the image contours on the wall, and observing safety measures. Besides, I worked with an assistant. Aleksey is from Belarus, he also creates graffiti. I showed him Satka, interesting places in the town, street art, including one of my works. Also, we were lucky to have our familiar driver of a crane truck at the place. He’s name is also Aleksey. We worked together in Karabash. And he knows the specifics, understands what needs to be done. Usually, the crane platform is elevated and fixed at a certain height, while we need constantly moving upward and downward, smoothly or following the lines, notices Timur.

The new mural opens the view of three similar nine-storey buildings at the entrance to the Zapadniy microdistrict. And the district is closed with the “Bear” – this is what the painting by Swiss street art masters (Nevercrew) made in 2017 is called by many. And the central red piece unites these two huge wall paintings. Is it a coincidence? Talking about this, Timur noted that “red and orange are the favorite, brand colors of Satka”.

By the way, there 10 main colors and their shades used in the whale painting. And by the time of our meeting with the artist, the piece was almost finished. Some small details like shadows were left to make in order to deepen some parts of the image. As the creators say, the graffiti will last long as the wall with the whale faces North and the sun almost never hits it. Besides, the interpanel joints were repaired in advance and cold light fixtures were installed at the house edge so that the quality of the painting does not wither.

BY THE WAY:

The whale’s tale is an ancient symbol of luck and might. In different cultures, it is a lucky charm, it means success, speed, confidence and sensitivity.

Source: “Magnezitovets”. Photo by Vasily Maximov, Denis Shakirov.