C215 brings stencil portraits of human-rights defenders to Espai Caldes

Christian Guémy, known as C215, has brought a large selection of his stencil portraits to Espai Caldes in Escaldes‑Engordany. The exhibition gathers faces he has painted on walls across Europe and foregrounds figures involved in struggles for human rights and freedom of expression; the portrait of teacher Samuel Paty is presented as a central piece, symbolising the defence of academic freedom months after the censorship of a Charlie Hebdo cover on the same walls.

Alongside the show, C215 is offering workshops for young people and adults and will present a book at the Moby Dick bookshop that explains his stencil technique and compiles some of the portraits he has made in public space.

Guémy says drawing was instinctive from childhood: his mother drew and left her sketchbooks after her early death when he was five, and his grandparents encouraged him to continue. He began working with stencils in 2006 to be able to paint quickly and without authorisation in public spaces while retaining studio precision. His working method starts from photographs that he digitises and vectorises, then he cuts each stencil layer by layer with a scalpel in the studio; applying paint in the street is the final step.

He lists wide and varied influences, from Romantic and Classical painters to 18th‑century Baroque, and names artists such as Yves Klein and members of the Blue Rider group like Franz Marc and Kandinsky. He also cites pioneers of urban art, from Ernest Pignon to Banksy, and notes the influence of poetry on artistic movements—for example, Apollinaire’s role in Cubism.

Guémy recounts that his work began to attract attention early: teams connected to Banksy and other Bristol artists identified him and, by 2007, offered visibility and commissions. He says that early demand for immediate professionalism and speed conflicted with his preference for a slower artistic maturation.

He chooses subjects according to context rather than a fixed programme. His portraits interact with place and moment, responding to themes that call to him at a given time. Although he has portrayed people who suffered abuses related to race, gender or faith—names such as Samuel Paty, Robert Badinter and Christiane Taubira have appeared—he rejects reducing his output to a single thematic list.

Memory plays a role in his practice, partly because he studied History, but his work also contains lighter, playful elements and an ongoing reflection on citizenship. Guémy argues that urban art, being public and freely accessible, carries a civic responsibility and is difficult to separate from social message. At the same time, he recognises that many artists choose decorative or pop‑oriented work to make a living; he describes that tendency as a concession to commerce and a form of “pirating” public space, while acknowledging artists have the freedom to follow different paths.