Moulins: art C215 invites himself to the mailbox
Posted on September 6, 2022
On July 12, La Poste offered the City of Moulins a post box in which street art artist C215, aka Christian Guemy, drew portraits of children, in homage to Ukraine.
Portrait artist C215 aka Christian Guémy works with his homemade stencils and aerosol cans. He plays with the contrast of shadows and light to give the gaze sharpness that responds to the intensity of the subject’s commitment. The C215 speaks on the streets around the world. And if portraits are his favorite subject, the yellow mailbox, the object of La Poste’s coat of arms, is one of his favorite mediums.
Three years ago, the artist left traces of his visit to Moulins (Allier): a portrait of a small child with his toy taped to a street mailbox posted on the Place de l’Allier.
“My wife and I were on our way to go to my in-laws and we stopped at Moulins. I just became a father. We had fun and I want to leave memories by painting a masterpieceC215 explained, still moved by this memory.
Resurrection elsewhere
On July 12, the artist returned to Moulins, to the Yzeure mail platform, to refresh his work which was deleted for security reasons, the sharp metal sheets of the mailbox can injure users. C215 then decided to cover it up with a portrait paying homage to Ukraine and the children of war victims. “I stayed 2 times in Ukraine during the war. The portrait in this mailbox was originally painted in Ukraine. This new job, which marks what I have been through, is meant to support all these children and refugees in France“.
Since the beginning of my activity, I paint a lot on mailboxes because they are a place of transition, correspondence: it is an awakening elsewhere.
Christian Guemy aka C215
Urban artist
The job was handed over to Moulins City
“I am very proud that this mailbox is alive again and people can admire the work that pays homage to the victims of war ” the testimony of Sylvain Vasseur, director of the Yzeure mail platform.”This is a very beautiful work. I have had the opportunity to pick it up many times and this new version in Ukrainian colors is very successful.”testified in turn Séverine Lurvois-Dore, supervisor.
After the work was completed, it was handed over to the city of Moulins in the presence of Pierre-André Périssol, mayor of the city and president of the Moulins community, Bernadette Martin, cultural assistant and Françoise Muller, curator of the media library. C215 urban jobs visible to everyone. And it’s a gamble that the new mailbox will still find its spray paint, to the delight of postal workers and passers-by.
This work is a beautiful tribute and great acknowledgment of postal workers and mail operators.
Christian Guémy has been taking to the streets around the world since the early 2000s. He presented his works painted on objects or on canvas in several galleries, in France and abroad. He has exhibited in many national museums and collaborates regularly with public, cultural or social institutions. C215 is also familiar with the postal world. Indeed, after participating in the PAINT BAL operation in 2012 (the sale of mailboxes marked by street artists has made it possible to return a Keith Haring painting pasted to the walls of both Necker hospitals in Paris), he regularly affixes his stencils to the famous yellow mailbox. from the Post Office. In February 2022, he created a brief “outside the walls” exhibition consisting of portraits of the Friends of the Liberation in the mailbox of the 7th arrondissement of Paris (opposite photo). In 2014, La Poste asked C215 to issue the stamp of the annual Stamp Festival, which features breakdancing. In 2016, La Poste asked him to make a stamp for the centenary of the birth of singer Léo Ferré. In 2019, C215 also illustrated a booklet of 10 “French Red Cross” stamps: 10 faces featuring stenciled works, painted with aerosols in Sao Paulo, Casablanca or in the Paris region, on the walls most of the time.
