Using the floor as a canvas, partly in homage to the typical traditional Catalan tiles and partly taking art to forgotten places, thus bringing them poetically back to life.
This, in a nutshell, is what Spanish street artist Javier De Riba does. Rather than working on great stretches of wall space, like many of his “colleagues”, he prefers to create elaborate geometric patterns – using spray paint and stencils - to decorate the floors of abandoned old buildings, or those in less frequented urban areas. The optical illusion is perfect: the geometric motifs look to all extents and purposes just like tiles, their striking colours and clean lines standing out in hitherto neglected spaces. The realisation that they are artworks strikes later, but the magic remains palpable.