Delicate patterns of lace adorn the facades of buildings,
magnified many times larger than life, echoing the particular
motifs of the region’s traditions. The Polish street artist
known as NeSpoon
travels from one nation to the next, alternately spray-painting
or weaving these patterns on public surfaces for events like
Sweden’s NO LIMIT festival and Berlin’s Urban Nation. She
defines the works as “somewhere in between street art, pottery,
painting, sculpture and jewelry.”
Though she’s been working in this style since 2009, NeSpoon
began tailoring her lacework designs more specifically to
regional traditions over the last few years. In 2017, for
example, she met with and observed lacemakers in Póvoa da
Atalia, Portugal to commemorate the vanishing craft practiced
by female circles of craftspeople. She enlarged their patterns,
and incorporated the women themselves into the resulting mural.
While many of these works are officially approved, particularly
the larger pieces, NeSpoon also makes use of guerrilla-style
methods, quickly spray-painting her lacework onto urban objects
like utility boxes.
“Why laces? Because in laces there is an aesthetic code, which
is deeply embedded in every culture,” she says. “In every lace
we find symmetry, some kind of order and harmony, isn’t that
what we all seek for instinctively?”
“Why street art? Because it gives freedom.”
