Large-scale murals unveiled at Prague’s Florenc metro station
Two large-scale murals have been officially unveiled on the platform of Prague’s Florenc metro station. The artworks, created by Matěj Olmer and Michal Škapa, are part of Prague City Gallery’s project called C Line 50, celebrating five decades since the opening of the city’s first metro line.
A crowd of people gathered on the platform of the Florenc metro station on Thursday afternoon to see the official unveiling of two giant paintings placed against each other on the walls above the metro tracks.
The idea to bring street art into the city’s underground train system came from Prague metro’s architect Anna Švarc. Together with Marie Foltýnová from Prague City Gallery they approached two well-known, artists Matěj Olmer and Michal Škapa, who both have roots in street art and graffiti.
The two were given pieces of plasterboard measuring 45 by 4.5 metres. Using synthetic sprays, Michal Škapa created a mural called “The City of M” which also incorporates his childhood memories of the subway.
“My mural is inspired by the city and it is based on my usual work. When I do canvases, I usually start with a paper collage and then I repaint it. In this case, I used the same method. I first drew different buildings and other fragments of the city and then I mixed it with the signs from the navigation system of Prague subway. I have loved the metro since my childhood, because I was growing up next to the Želivského metro station and it was something like my gateway to the city.”
The other artist, Matěj Olmer worked with latex, acrylic paints and synthetic sprays to create an artwork called Landscape Possessed by Darkness:
“It comes from the lyrics from the famous Semafor song, in Czech it is Krajina posedlá tmou. I usually work with my own lyrics, which I transfer into the paintings. In this case, I used these lyrics, mainly because of the metro, which is connected with darkness. I used it to show people the fragments of nature in the technical surroundings of the metro.”
Since Prague metro runs from 5 a.m. until midnight, the artists had very limited space of time to work on their paintings, explains Michal Škapa.
“It wasn’t easy. We only had time from 1 a.m. until 3.30 a.m., so less than two and a half hours, which is quite a short time. Also, it wasn’t easy to work at night and sleep during the daytime. It took me seven days and I used literally every minute of the time to paint.
“First I did a sketch with one colour on the wall and then I had some helpers to do the fillings. Afterwards I started with the outline and details which took me the last three days and the last two days I spent here on my own, so it was a funny feeling to be in the metro all alone at night.”
As part of the project Line C 50, the Prague City Gallery plans to place more artworks in the Prague metro. It has recently published an open call for artists to submit their proposals for another five stations, including Vyšehrad, Budějovická, Kačerov, Pražského povstání and I. P. Pavlova. The winning designs will be selected in September.
