Spanish Artist Paints A 115-Foot Water Tank- “A Mural That Has No Beginning Or End”

In the beautiful city of France, around the banks of the Loire river, there is a town named Gien, where a huge mural can be spotted on a 115-foot water tank. The magnificent structure painted with a beautiful pastel palette stands out against the dull-looking small buildings around it. This mural has been painted by a Spanish artist, Taquen.

Image source: Taquen

Taquen chose one of the three water tanks in the area to paint local birds such as ospreys, common terns, or gray herons found near the Loire.

Image source: Taquen

This was the artist’s second project with the Urban Art Agency. According to him, this new project was different than his earlier projects and came with bigger challenges and an opportunity that he had never imagined. The biggest challenge was fluctuating weather. As Taquen describes on his website, “The flatlands near the Loire Valley make the weather totally unpredictable and after 12 days of rain, wind, cold, heat, and sun we managed to finish this great project. I am very grateful to Mathieu, Seb, Pepe, and the other people who did their part to make it happen and worked with me in the process.”

The process of painting the huge tank came with a lot of challenges

Image source: Taquen

Taquen has been creating art for a very long time but it has hardly been three years since he took it up professionally. As he told DeMilked, “I started to paint graffiti at high school, when I was 13, then I studied fine arts in Madrid, Spain. I honestly cannot say at what point I started from all this. I can only dedicate myself professionally since 2018, but I suppose that long before my intention was the same.”

Image source: Taquen

The artist also revealed that it took him around 11 straight days (8-10 hours per day) to finish the massive mural and explained, “the work talks about endless movement, water cycles, and the importance of water for life, that is why I use birds that inhabit the banks of the Loire, a river that passes through Gien, France.”

Image source: Taquen

The photographer fabe_co captured the whole process of painting the tank brilliantly.

Image source: Taquen

When asked what inspired him to paint the water tank, Taquen said, “On one hand, there was the challenge and the desire to paint such a large building, it was a very good opportunity. And on the other hand, to work again for and with Urban Art Agency, which had already trusted me a year before.”

Taquen is very fond of birds. They are usually seen in many of his other street murals.

Image source: Instagram

Image source: Instagram

Image source: Instagram

When we asked him why he chooses birds for his murals, he replied, “For me, they are very special animals, which help me to speak metaphorically about issues related to human beings and especially with movement, migration, and freedom. It is also a way to raise awareness and speak directly about nature.”