Les enfants poissons

On a small house beside the Canal Saint-Denis, several strangely dreamlike figures emerge from the walls: human bodies with large fish heads and oversized grey hands appear to inhabit an imaginary underwater world. A school of differently coloured and shaped fish spreads across the adjoining wall, while the painting incorporates windows, projections and architectural edges directly into the composition.

The work is titled Les enfants poissons (“The Fish Children”) and was created in June and July 2016 as part of Street Art Avenue, a large-scale urban art project along the Canal Saint-Denis between Paris and Saint-Denis. The aquatic scene was created by Pablo Machioli, while sources attribute the figures to No Rules Corp, also known as Evazésir.

The mural is characterised by a comic-book-like visual language and a deliberately restrained palette of grey, white, red and yellow. The combination of human bodies and fish heads gives the figures an unusual, almost surreal presence, while the surrounding fish reinforce the impression of an underwater environment. Contemporary documentation specifically notes the way the painting follows and incorporates the unusual architecture of the building.

The work extends across several wall and façade surfaces, making the architecture itself an integral part of the composition. It is therefore a characteristic example of the Street Art Avenue project, in which murals were conceived in direct relation to the buildings and infrastructure along the canal.