Mural by Rafael Sottolichio

This work brings together a street-art vocabulary and a urban approach. Its value does not come from applying decoration to architecture: the mural gains meaning through its scale, its surface and the way it is encountered in a real place.

Active since 2008 · Neighborhood: Plateau-Mont-Royal Rafael Sottolichio came to muralism from gallery painting, and it shows. His works on the walls of the Plateau-Mont-Royal neighborhood possess the density and thoughtfulness of an easel painting, as well as the depth of a stage-like space where figures inhabit a meticulous geometry. Thirty years of figurative practice are distilled into a few square meters of building façade, offering passersby an encounter with art that has nothing to prove. "Murals blending realism and geometry to create stage-like spaces where a philosophical and poetic imagination unfolds." Rafael Sottolichio has been exhibiting in galleries for over thirty years—a rarity in a visual arts scene often driven by trends and constant turnover. His mastery of figurative art, honed through decades of studio practice, gives him a quiet confidence when tackling large-scale murals. It was his collaboration with MU, Montreal’s mural arts organization, that opened up the city’s walls to him in 2008. Rather than adapting his artistic language to the conventions of street art, he transposes the codes of his lifelong figurative practice onto these large surfaces: rigorous compositions, geometric spatial construction, and figures inhabiting a world that is simultaneously realistic and dreamlike—where the philosophical and the poetic coexist in harmony. The result is a form of muralism marked by rare intellectual distinction—works that do not seek to catch the eye with garish colors or spectacular effects, but rather invite the viewer to pause and contemplate the interplay occurring within the depths of the image. It is a presence that is both understated and intense, true to an artistic ethos that has defined his entire career.

Rafael Sottolichio, whose practice is connected with Montréal, develops a visual world that can be followed from one wall to another. Captions and archives connected to this body of work document several mural interventions. These points of reference place the image within a practice rather than treating it as an isolated visual.