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Miguel Silva already had the idea in his head in 2019, but he did not have the courage to tell his grandmother. The pandemic ended up distancing him from the matriarch, given the reduced number of visits and the interruption of Sunday meetings. Grandmother Clotilde died in July last year as a result of worsening health problems. A month later, graffiter He immortalized her with a giant painting – four meters high, six meters wide – in ‘his’ tunnel, near where he lives, in Vila Frescainha S. Martinho, in the municipality of Barcelos. Now, every day, the 25-year-old sees, from his home, the image of his grandmother ‘Tide’ and has created a “place of worship” where the whole family, which is quite large, can honor her.
When Clotilde went to Praça de Alegria, when the RTP program offered an award to grandparents with more children, a bus was needed. He then had 24 grandchildren and six great-grandchildren. There are now about 30 grandchildren and 37 great-grandchildren (two of whom were born after his death).
“It’s a really big family,” Miguel Silva contextualizes. In a family group on social networks, all the grandchildren and great-grandchildren shared the photographs they took with Clotilde. These portraits with the grandmother were a way of bringing the whole family together.
Miguel Silva now sees the image of his grandmother, every day, from home. Photo: Paulo Jorge Magalhães / O MINHO
“I have cousins that I don’t know personally yet, but I know them because they already took a photo with their grandmother,” he says. graffiter, considering that “this legacy had to persist.”
“My whole family, those who are going to be born, my children and my cousins, they have to take a picture with their grandmother and in the cemetery it is not pleasant. So, here they have a place of worship to take a picture with her and say hello ”, explains the graphic designer of a sublimated textile company.
Passion for graffiti was born from hip hop
The viaduct of the so-called ‘new highway’, which connects Barcelos with Viana do Castelo, has thus become a point of visit for Miguel Silva’s relatives, who pass by, on their hygienic walks, to have a “good morning” to the grandmother. Clotilde. the graffiter You don’t even need to leave the house to see your grandmother’s painting. “You can see this place from my house, I see my grandmother every day from the hall window,” he says.
It was two and a half days of work, accompanied by a team that later produced a video. “If it were today, I would make it even bigger.” It was painted on top of other works, since that viaduct is like the second house of the graffiter who started painting there about eight years ago.
“The first two years [de experiência] I don’t even count much, because you have to learn, scratch, improve, know the spray, notice that the spray it is not the same as paper. From then on it was an evolution ”, says the artist, whose work was recently unveiled in a report on the Barcelos newspaper.
That viaduct, near the place where you live, is your temple. There he experimented, evolved and now “every painting that [ali] to do is to remain permanent ”. “I invest more time, to stay as a tourist spot, that’s how I idealized it,” says the graffiter who signs with the label Soldier.
The origin of the stage name dates back to the universe of hip hop, which brought it to the graffiti.
Miguel Silva signs with the stage name ‘Soldier’. Photo: Paulo Jorge Magalhães / O MINHO
“I have always been passionate about hip hop culture, my cousins also influenced me in that sense. Today I listen to any kind of music, but graffiti started there. Now I not only draw on hip hop to create, but on all kinds of visual and musical culture. OR graffiti It belongs to hip hop but, as I got older, I realized that it belongs mainly to the community, to all of us. It belongs more to the city than to the artist, the artist is only the medium ”, he considers, appealing to“ more opportunities for artists ”.
The songs “I am a soldier” by Tupac Shakur and “Like toy soldiers” by Eminem inspired Miguel Silva, who in the first year signed in Portuguese, as “Soldier”, and then switched to English. “I was inspired by that word and its music. Then I switched to ‘Soldier’, in English, because I like the composition of the lyrics better, “he explains.
“The police don’t bother me”
The soldier’s ‘barracks’ is the viaduct where, before his grandmother, he had drawn a portrait of his best friend and a friend. “This tunnel is no longer just mine, I want you to share it,” he says, realizing that, there, he is helping others to develop art, as they also helped him before, that is, by integrating a ‘crew’. This is how he grew up artistically: “Talk to people who have been painting for a longer time and learn from them.”
The neighborhood already knows him and likes his work. “The reaction of the neighbors is impeccable, five stars.” And the police don’t bother you. “I have been painting here for a long time. The police come by, talk to me and don’t bother me. I have always felt comfortable, especially because I am not bothering anyone ”, Miguel Silva reinforces, noting that, however, nothing invalidates that Infraestruturas de Portugal one day“ will do maintenance and cover everything with concrete to reinforce the bridge ”.
Before his grandmother, Miguel Silva had already drawn his best friend. Photo: Paulo Jorge Magalhães / O MINHO
Assuming that his intervention in that place is illegal, the graffiter He does not hide that he would like to have the opportunity – which he has not had so far – to paint in the city of Barcelos “with all the rules, legally”.
In this sense, he has “some” projects in mind, one of which will be to compete for the Chamber’s Participatory Budget. “It will not be something the municipality spends a lot on, but it will be studied to intervene and fit in with the community,” he says, without revealing any more details.
“Barcelos has to grow in artistic terms”, defends Miguel Silva, stating that, in this context, the city was “once great, but now it has begun to collapse a bit and this side of the people is losing a lot just to enjoy the city “.
The paintings of Afmach, a renowned painter from the city, in the ‘Largo dos Poetas’, is an example that this artistic intervention in the community is possible and has good results. “It is good that this is already allowed and that it is the first step”, declares the graffiter, hoping not to have to wait “as long” as that veteran artist to have that opportunity.
Tunnel became a “place of worship” for Grandma ‘Tide’s family. Photo: Paulo Jorge Magalhães / O MINHO
However, for ‘your’ tunnel, you have the idea of ’closing’ the wall with a drawing of two women touching each other. It will represent friendship and “it will be the union of the tunnel”, adding the pictures of the friend and the grandmother (“the happiness and harmony of the family”) to the portrait of the friend in the other corner (where the word “saudade” is inscribed). It will also make the color transition. “It’s the biggest painting I’m going to do,” he reveals.
But the “greatest honor”, this, is the tribute to grandmother ‘Tide’.
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