Verso Project. 550×400 cm
handcoloured poster. March 2010
Torino, via pesaro

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Zahra. 200 x 500cm. handmade
March 2010. Torino, via pietro giuria

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Zahra. 200 x 500cm. handmade
March 2010. Torino, via pietro giuria.

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handcoloured poster. May 2010. Torino

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IN/OUT SIDE. handcoloured poster. June 2009. accademia delle belle arti, Torino

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handcoloured poster. April 2009. Torino

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Italian street artist BR1 is working and studying on the figure of the Muslim woman since two years: history, tradition, legal sources and development in contemporary society. A complete research on the theme. His posters are drawn and coloured freehand, each of them is unique. The subjects are not invented but real, he uses images taken from newspapers, magazines and websites. Often they are portraits of important personalities of Muslim society (novelists, poets, entrepreneurs, feminists etc…), in order to make Western societies know who they are and what they do.

“As a lot of artists, I started my career interpreting typical subject of our world: USA power, corporation as mcDonalds, the clash with eastern world, pollution. Some years ago I understood that I don’t like to express my creativity  on topics like USA, oil, wars, poverty in Africa, even if they are themes that I follow and I read books about them. Since I start drawing, when I was young, I made draw of  human beings. I love figurative drawings. But I feel that I was not interested on the western woman, because I want to try to use art to describe a typical phenomenon or a sociological theme.

A woman wearing it has another allure or behaviour. And you know, for many people the veil is a sort of taboo or a cryptic theme, but it captured my attention, because I am a curious person. I am from Italy; I am secularized and I have a big respect for other people in general. I think that today is a risk to introduce religious elements on my poster, because I don’t completely know Islam, I am not Islamic, and I am not interested in religious. This is the point: why a dress has so strong connotation of religion? This thing attracts me.”

Another trait of his work is the colour: he wants that his posters appear with nice and saturated colours, because he wants to transmit happiness and positive feelings.

Watch more at http://www.flickr.com/photos/br1art/ or read this good interview at ekosystem