Photo stories: artists inspired by Graco

Graco's professional painting equipment has a wider audience than you might expect. Our LineLazers and airless paint sprayers are also the preferred tools for creating very impressive, even revolutionary artwork. 

Saype, King of Land Art

Guillaume Legros (1989, France) is Saype, a French-Swiss artist, who started his career in graffiti art at the age of 14. Today, he has become a true master at 'landart', in this case large spray paintings in grass fields.

Since 2019, Saype has gained worldwide fame with his ‘Beyond Walls’-project: 'The largest human chain in the world’. This project aims at creating the largest symbolic human chain around the world, promoting values such as togetherness, kindness and openness to the world. It kicked off with the transformation of the grass fields at the foot of the Eiffel Tower into one giant artwork measuring 15 000 m². The artwork fades over time as the grass grows. The paint is also 100% biodegradable.

Saype's latest and 9th piece can be admired in Sea Point, Cape Town, South Africa. It consists of three frescoes using approximately 1000 litres of biodegradable pigments made out of charcoal, chalk, water and milk proteins. The artwork in Cape Town was motivated by the country's persisting need for reunification. The three frescoes representing widely different populations and realities within the city were created in Sea Point (6000 m²), the Philippi township (800 m²) and the Langa township (800 m²).

"Creating a piece this large in such a short period of time is only feasible with an airless paint sprayer. ‘The timing was tight, I could not afford a single material breakdown. Luckily I know that I can count on Graco's qualitative paint sprayers."

'Beyond walls' has the ambition of being one of the biggest art projects ever created. So far, nine cities have had Saype visit them to create land art paintings: Paris, Andorre, Geneva, Berlin, Ouagadougou, Yamoussoukro, Turin and Cape Town. Other cities will follow in the coming years. Saype has created all his pieces using a combination of the Graco Ultra Handheld and the Ultra Max II 795 airless paint sprayers.

Read all about Saype's work: https://www.saype-artiste.com and his inspiring story: revolutionary artwork made with graco paint sprayers

Digital Does - 'No pressure, no diamonds'

Does is Joos Van Barneveld (1982), a former professional soccer player who is known today as an ultra-talented draftsman and an amazing colourist. Lately Does has been taking a more conceptual direction in his work. He is looking at graffiti as an archive from which to physically pull out samples that embody his own roots.

He drills or peels off walls covered with spray paint and includes these artefacts into sculptures made of plaster. He develops a kind of contemporary archaeology of urban spaces, keeping a trace of the geographical coordinates of these walls.

(source: https://www.digitaldoes.com/about-does/)

For his piece ‘No Pressure No Diamonds’, Does collaborated with Matthias ‘Zenith’ Schoenaerts. In October 2020 they worked on this radiant piece inspired by a crack in the wall that Does photographed in Paris. ‘No Pressure No Diamonds’ announces that there’s glory in imperfection and triumph in pain. Flashy and cheerful colours arouse the idea of diamonds to cheer up passers-by. While the Belgium city of Antwerp was undergoing strict regulations to prevent a further spread of the corona virus, Does and Zenith worked long days, side by side, high and low, with only the evening curfew holding them back. 

(source: https://www.digitaldoes.com/blog/no-pressure-no-diamonds/)