Florentjn Hofman
Florentijn Hofman is a Dutch artist who creates playful urban installations like the Rubber Duck and the HippopoThames, a 2014 installation on the River Thames in London.
He mostly works on reproducing large versions of everyday objects, such as laminate flooring and flip-flops. With these sculptures, he wants to make people's lives happier. The purpose of his art is to promote the message of healing.
The latest installation in Rotterdam is a huge orange fox: a tribute to these animals, active visitors to the city, but also an invitation to finding a balance between the human sphere and nature.

Fox, Rotterdam, photocredit: Frank Hanswijk
Kilos
Kilos is a Portuguese artists who started experimenting with graffiti in the street and in abandoned places in Porto at the age of 16. Since then, he has endeavored to perfect his spray technique. He has paintings in several places in his hometown of Lisbon as well as in Barcelona and London. In March 2018, he had his first solo exhibition at Dedicated Store Porto. In May 2019, he inaugurated his second solo exhibition called ‘Shhh!’ at Suuuper (Porto). Despite his young age, he is starting a silent political campaign in defense of human rights.

Comedian 02, from Kilos’ instagram page
Blu
An anonymous Italian street artist, Blu, became a figure in the art world in 1999 with his graffiti in the streets of Bologna, Italy. In the last 15 years, he has been both highly praised and highly criticized for his works around the world. Many of his pieces—even those commissioned by prestigious institutions such as the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA)—have been painted over or removed because of their politicized commentary.
Blu’s website and blog provide his fans with a real-time digital diary of his inspiration and his art locations. Most recently, he has been traveling in Bolivia and Mexico to paint and is also experimenting with photography.

Image source: https://gohighbrow.com/blu/
Iena Cruz
Iena Cruz’s artistic creations have been concerned about the environment and animals since her first pieces. "Climate change, global change, animals in danger of extinction, global warming, and pollution are the themes on which my production has focused in recent years."
Since 2018, he has been using a particular paint for his works (Arlite), which, thanks to a particular formula, allows his art to actually purify the air. His first mural, a thousand square meters in the middle of Rome and painted with this technique, is cleaning as much air as a forest of 30 trees can.

Hunting Pollution, source: https://www.pinterest.it/pin/715790934509573781/
Okuda Saint Miguel
Okuda Saint Miguel is a Spanish painter and sculptor known for his distinctive style of colorful geometric patterns that portray animals, skulls, religious iconography, and human figures. His murals can be seen on buildings and objects across the world, including in India, Mali, France, the United States, Japan, Chile, Brazil, Peru, South Africa, Mexico, Canada, Morocco, Ukraine, and Spain.
His works focus on contradictions in existentialism, the meaning of life, and the false freedom of capitalism, particularly the conflict between modernity and our human roots.

Antonyo Marest
Antonyo Marest is a Spanish painter, sculptor, and designer, who primarily belongs to the movement known as urban art. The artist is described as having been “born in the Mediterranean.”
From his love for architecture and construction arises his predilection for abstraction and geometry when telling stories. In addition to the geometric figure as the axis, the use of recycled or reused materials is frequent in his work and serve as a reflection on the economic and social crisis in today's society. His art is a mixture of abstract expressionism with traces of pop art and is influenced by post-grafiti. Its roots are inspired by the Memphis Group, a movement that transformed the canons of industrial design in the 80s, and also by Kandinsky's abstract art and Bofill's postmodernism.

Image courtesy: https://northofboston.org/murals/villa-alegra/
Giorgio Casu
At the age of 26, Giorgio Casu made the decision to leave Sardinia, Italy, to seek his place in the world. His first stop was Leeds, and then he travelled to Thailand, Australia, Indonesia, Northern France, Mexico, Costa Rica, and Fiji. In 2007, he landed in New York after being convinced by his photographer friend, Layla Love.
"Art is the most interesting and exciting pastime that I have found. It has always fascinated me, involved me, and is part of me. It is my job, but I see it as a pastime above all; it was the best choice of my life."

Image: Obama, courtesy of ‘Permanent Collection of White House’
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