Recently, several murals have been painted in the city center of Debrecen. The first one was put up on the firewall of the Bethlen Gábor School of Economics in 2021: the spectacular work was commissioned by the Debrecen Vocational Training Centre and Alföldi Printing Company to mark the 460th anniversary of the founding of the local printing industry. The second is a tribute to Ákos László, the city’s iconic painter and his work, on the firewall behind Gambrinusz lane and the third is a glimpse of Magda Szabó’s Debrecen on the wall of the former Rickl House at 39 Piac Street.
The series continues, with the latest, the fourth mural, being painted in the crossing between Bajcsy-Zsilinszky Street and Hal Square, in the Sesztina courtyard. If you pass by, you can also get a glimpse into the secrets of the workshop, as István Puskás, the city’s deputy mayor for cultural affairs, told Debrecen Television earlier, indicating that this fourth mural will continue the theming of Debreceness. “The philosophy of the undertakings is to express the identity of the city, in addition to the decoration. So, in addition to the visual impulses, the works also try to teach about the city’s past, about what it means to be a city,” István Puskás concluded.
This fourth mural is also done by street artists from Grafik Trafik. They have had a lot of experience in similar works before – mainly in Budapest – and have brought this knowledge back to Debrecen to enrich the cultural life and community of the city.
As Tamás Vékony explained, this mural is not part of the previous project.
– We have been thinking of this graffitied wall with the Deputy Mayor for a long time, and this work is a gift to the city from our company, the Grafik Trafik team.
And what will we see here?
– It shows a view of the town at the time, with people working in the fields, farmhouses and cottages, and also the four churches: the Great Church, the still onion-domed Little Church, St Anne’s and Ispotály Church. The picture is placed on an antiqued paper-effect surface, as if it were a print. It is surrounded by ornamental floral motifs and there is also the coat of arms of the free royal city of Debrecen.
This painting is smaller than the earlier frescoes – 22 square meters – but it has plenty of work to do. (The one on the wall of the Rickl House is about 100 square meters, and the one by Ákos László is 260 square meters.)
– It’s more detailed than the previous two, the lines are thinner, the whole process is longer than we thought, and it’s a two-man job.
As Tamás Vékony explained, several options were originally considered, but in the end, together with Deputy Mayor István Puskás, they decided on the one that would be placed here. As he says, it was a great help that the Cívis House Zrt. renovated this wall for us, and also that they received high-resolution files from the archives to work with.
Source: Dehir.hu
