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San Román de San Millán, known as Durruma, a village located just 30 km from the capital of Alava, whose plains are set to form part of the high-speed train TAV.  The platform group against the high speed train, AHTrik ez! TAV no! together with the village town council contacted the artist to create a mural painting on one of the walls on the entrance to the village

A wall painting with character, which reflects the surroundings, the people, the traditions, and the message they wanted to convey, say No to the high-speed train.  With these ideas in mind the artist designed, in collaboration with the children and adults from Durruma, a wall paintig which welcomes people at the entrance to the village.

The Alaves mountains, the Tobería waterfalls, (known to freeze over in Winter) or the village houses are some of the features of this mural, together with some children carrying the flag AHTrik ez! TAV no alongside others practising local sports such as handball.

The artist has already passed through cities like Thessaloniki, Barcelona or Bilbao. Relax in Mendoza thanks to a collaboration between the Basque Government, the municipality and the Basque center “Denak bat”

At the hands of UNESCO, last year was invited by the United Nations to Geneva to work on education for social transformation. He has made artistic residencies in countries such as France, Switzerland or Italy.

MENDOZA A mural of 125 square meters in La Ciba, a center that will be a feminist reference in Europe from Barcelona. A tunnel of more than 300 meters painted with mineral paints that react only when they come in contact with the water and that resist the most adverse weather conditions or a mural project the Basque Country of 300 square meters in which they participated, in the painting, more of 500 people That is the business card with which the contemporary Basque artist Irantzu Lekue reaches Mendoza.

Two months ago Lekue presented his latest exhibition at the Govedarou Art Gallery in Thessaloniki (Greece). Until the end of the year, part of his work is in the Itsasmuseum Museum in Bilbao. But Irantzu Lekue works these days in a mural of more than 250 square meters in Mendoza. It is the second: last week he made another one at the Avelino Maure school in Godoy Cruz: together with the students of the school. He will not be the only one to do in Argentina: on Thursday he starts with a new artistic work at the Denak Bat Basque Center and on the 14th he will arrive in the south of the country, invited to the Fourth Biennial of Art of Neuquén, in the Open Sky Museum section .

The list of cities in which the Basque artist has worked since she began to make herself known in the streets of Vitoria at the end of the last century is very long. In all of them, their known and recognizable murals leave their mark and not only visual. Lekue has stood out for its social commitment. Artivism works and that led him to be denounced for carrying out an artistic occupation of a building – owned by a bank – that should have been intended for the training of artists. Sample of their commitment is also the sculpture installed in the city of Vitoria – Gasteiz that recalls the struggle of women in the 1976 strikes that claimed the lives of seven workers, killed by the Spanish Police when they left a church after an assembly .

Giant mural in Barcelona

The last great work of this contemporary artist is the one developed in Barcelona (Catalunya). It is the participatory mural for the social transformation Temps de Dones, in La CIBA, an emblematic building, of more than 6,000 square meters that will become a reference in Europe as it is equipped with the most cutting-edge equipment to develop gender, innovation and feminist economy. The mural title refers to the song ‘Les temps de cerises’ and the Paris Commune, and represents different generations of women who release each other, the most prominent being a girl who symbolizes the future and the generational relief.

Irantzu Lekue arrives in Argentina after concluding the work “Loreen abstrakzioa” that he shares with the birds of the prestigious Basque artist Jose Luis Zumeta and part of the colors and shapes that the artist used for the creation of his sculptural installation. As indicated “I wanted to reinterpret the interior of the flowers. The birds of Zumeta give space a context and I have opted to enter the work in the depths of the earth through flowers ”. The intervention of Irantzu Lekue thus joined those carried out in the town of Usurbil by great Basque artists such as Jose Luis Zumeta, Remigio Mendiburu, Alejandro Tapia or Iñaki Olazabal. The next will be Judas Arrieta. In Errekaleor its mural looks, for example, together or another of the renowned Italian street art-er “Blu”.

The work of Irantzu Lekue shares space with the birds of Jose Luis Zumeta and part of the colors and shapes that the artist used for the creation of his sculptural installation.

“I wanted to reinterpret the inside of the flowers. The birds of Zumeta give space a context and I have opted to enter the work in the depths of the earth through flowers ”.

DONOSTIA Usurbil continues to increase the map of artistic interventions that, at street level, can be visited in the town. The contemporary Basque artist and Gasteiztar muralist Irantzu Lekue has concluded the artistic intervention in which he has been working during the last weeks. “In total they are around XX. square meters on which it has intervened ”, explains Mayor Agurtzane Solaberrieta. The intervention of Irantzu Lekue thus joins those made by other great Basque artists such as Jose Luis Zumeta, Remigio Mendiburu, Alejandro Tapia or Iñaki Olazabal.

A colorful bet that has completely changed the look of the hitherto dark passage that links Kale Nagusia and Askatasuna Plaza. “When I arrived I wanted to see first the sculptural installation that José Luis Zumeta has in the passage. It was a challenge since both works were going to live in the same space and had to ensure that there was harmony between them. I started with the sketches and opted to adapt the palette and shapes to those selected by Jose Luis, ”explains the artist. The work changes according to the perspective since Lekue wanted to “play” with the audience. Thus, it has integrated the different heights of the passage.

“With this work I seek to reinterpret the inside of a flower. It is an underpass in a building built by the human being and inside are the Zumeta birds. I wanted to represent the habitat of these birds, their food. In this way we bring the organic to a cold space and shape what is born from the earth, the natural ”. That is why the artist has expressed “the abstraction inside a flower, as if we were focusing on macro and inside, just like at the entrance door of the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona I have represented different living beings that inhabit the flowers and that would be the food of the birds of Jose Luis Zumeta ”.

Lekue’s work is, therefore, abstract and open to interpretations. “The mural has had a very good acceptance from the neighbors. Each one makes his reading and we have managed to improve the space: with the colorful artistic intervention and with the change of pavement ”, explained Mayor Agurtzane Solaberrieta.

Lekue has underlined his joy for having worked in Usurbil, a town to which he wanted to thank all the attention given. “When we approach creative experiences our gaze changes and that influences how we look at the world; if we are more or less empathetic; if we are willing to understand other realities … The path that Usurbil is taking is very interesting because of that, because it brings art to the street, because it seeks and provokes interaction ”. The artistic intervention will be incorporated into the guided tours “Harria Hitz” offered by the people.