“Liberation of the Soul” by NYCHOS
Nychos and Mural Harbor break their own record. In 2016, “The Translucent Serpent” was created, which, at almost 900 square meters, is the largest mural by Nychos and Mural Harbor to date. The “green snake” has long since become an icon of the harbor. In April 2024, Nychos painted his mural “Liberation Of The Soul”, which, over a length of 80 meters, depicts a very personal inner journey and tells a real story in the spirit of the original Mexican Muralismo.
In Nychos’s life, one can distinguish three creative phases; as a teenager, he playfully discovered graffiti as a source of creativity and thrills. He tried out different letter combinations and initial figures, traveled to other cities and befriended other sprayers. In retrospect, it is the most formative time, because the only thing that matters is the shared passion, and what he learns and experiences will have a decisive influence on the artist he will become later on. At the end of this first phase, he has the letters NYCHOS and (often next to them) a cheeky rabbit as his figure, his “character” as they say in the graffiti language.
The second phase can confidently be called a “storm and stress period” in the sense of Goethe. With the street art hype of the early 2000s, the world is open to the early twenties. Rebellion and anti-bourgeoisie are appreciated again. The walls on offer are getting bigger and are no longer supposed to be filled with just letters – they are being replaced by characters, various animals, mostly robbers and perfect killers, who from now on not only stand for the name, but also for the person behind the name. So the hare becomes a tiger, eagle, shark and the hunted becomes the hunter. His artistic style is said to have its roots in his family background as a hunter; an apparently innate interest in the inner workings of organic bodies. In the process, he perfected various techniques to expose the innards in a painterly way; sometimes he dissected his subject vertically or horizontally. Other times he used the explosion technique or made body parts transparent, or as he says, “translucent”.
With his instantly recognizable style and tireless energy, he soon made it into the highest circles of urban art and after a few years, Nychos’ animals were looking down on walls all over the world. He founded a company and the gallery/agency Rabbit Eye Movement in Vienna, produced a movie for the cinema, printed, wrote, drew, painted and still sprayed the biggest walls in the shortest time. After more than ten years of higher, faster, further, he comes to Linz in 2016 for his biggest wall yet. But after two days, the work stops: physical symptoms, head empty, off to the doctor. After a few days of rest, he fights his way back to finish the wall, but it will be his last big wall for many years. A whiff of unintended tragedy lies over the last piece of the old cycle, because now the snake has finally swallowed the hare and is already digesting it. The time of the hunted is over, but at the same time, the time of the hunter is also ending.
Nychos himself calls the third artistic phase “The Awakening”. It begins with a crisis and an inventory of the body and soul, accompanied by medicine, therapy, shamanism, meditation and other techniques of self-discovery. The Hartberg native, who has since moved to Los Angeles, is slowing down and focusing on himself. This preoccupation with the mind and soul naturally flows into his art from now on. Now the human being becomes the central motif of his artistic creation; self-portraits, female figures, possible reincarnations, deities and mythical creatures. Animals still appear, but as “spirit animals” they take a back seat. Nychos now mainly creates art in his studio on canvases, where he can spend more time with a work than on exterior walls. His pictorial style is becoming more and more detailed: fantastic backgrounds emerge and the motifs often overlap – whereas previously a main motif without a background, almost like a sticker, worked. This also explains why “Liberation Of The Soul” took 12 weeks to complete, while “The Translucent Serpent” took only five days.
