The Ganja Queen
A 6x8 m murales for Leoncavallo a squat in Milan. that represent gaia, the holy mother of nature done by hand with acrylic and paint brushes.
When the squat Leoncavallo in Milan asked me to paint inside their building, it was like a dream becoming true. Since I was a young fella I always loved this place, as an area where you can express art with absolute freedom, music, writing, painting and anything else that blows your mind away. Being able to make such a big painting inside the building is like leaving a message for the future generations, giving a place to let them remember what is connected with the word of freedom. The holy woman represent mother nature, growing a small marijuana tree on her right hands. She has the sun as a halo around her head, she is into the floor like a tree, and she has water falling from the left palm of her hand to the right palm, where the roots of the plant is. Those three elements, with the love represented by the hearth on the back of the plant, are all the fundamental elements to let nature grows free. I wanted to create a holy corner inside this old factory, where people who believe in nature and in the Rastafari way of living, can really be connected with the soul of gaia.
I inserted the heart a week after finishing the work, because the love you need to help nature was somehow missing as the archetipe of the third chakra, the heart, that is supposed to be nearby the plexus. I love to put different levels of understanding on a painting. I was missing one level that is quite important and connected with the Milan's squat history: it's a lyric from an hip hop band that was based between Turin and Milan called Sangue Misto. "Nasce dall'unione della terra con il sole" from "La porra" said "It is born from the connection between the land and the sun", it's a song dedicated to the smokers culture and to the true hip hop roots of my life, to those people who broadcast this sound and push that scene since years like Cypress Hill, Snoop Dogg, and many others.
