Floored

[Image: Photo courtesy Javier de Riba].

Catalan artist Javier de Riba, who paints often quite large geometric patterns reminiscent of tiles onto the floors of abandoned buildings, has produced a new installation inside a derelict Portuguese hotel.

[Image: Photo courtesy Javier de Riba].

The hotel, de Riba explains, was “open only for one year. It was a foreign investment that didn’t succeed and was unable to pay the suppliers. Soon after the closing [it] became empty and now there’s only the skeleton left.”

An accompanying video documents de Riba’s actual painting process, as you can see below.

I have to admit, I find these installations much more visually compelling than many other examples of graffiti, and I would love to see this sort of thing produced elsewhere.

[Image: Photo courtesy Javier de Riba].

Even de Riba’s deliberately fragmentary works are quite evocative and go a very long way toward transforming the ambience of otherwise empty architectural spaces, both indoors and out.

[Image: Photo courtesy Javier de Riba].

(Via designboom; see also Colossal).