Imon Boy: the anonymous graffiti artist from Malaga who exhibits in Los Angeles and Hong Kong

—Shall we paint?

This question is enough in the WhatsApp group that the artist Imon Boy shares with his friends to start the action.

Loaded with cans of paint and rollers, this young man heads to the chosen location any morning.

There they chat, paint, take photos with their sweatshirt hood up and leave without being seen.

Upon returning, in the tranquility of his house, away from the adrenaline, and alone, this creator turns to the canvas, where he reflects with slow strokes fragments of his daily life.

Only a few know the identity of this creator who leaves his signature in every city he visits and has exhibited in museums and galleries in Ibiza, Dubai, Los Angeles or London.

Malagueño, born in 1992, combines the clandestinity of street actions with exhibitions whose openings he attends incognito.

“That waiter follows me on social media, but he has no idea who I am,” he says as an example while having breakfast in a cafeteria near his house, near the sea.

He says this recently arrived from Havana after participating in a collective project promoted by the Figueroa-Vives studio and with his sights set on Hong Kong, where he opened his new exhibition,

We have it all , on January 5

,

and has already sold almost all of it. the exposed pieces.

Like many other graffiti artists, including the famous Banksy, Imon Boy decided from the beginning to remain anonymous for safety.

Thus no one—especially police officers—could link his image to his work on the street.

Today he maintains it for convenience, also for peace of mind: he prefers that no one recognizes him or points fingers at him for what he does or does not do.

This creates curious situations.

Like when he is introduced to people claiming to be Imon Boy.

For example, he remembers that during a trip a boy “revealed” to him that he was Imon Boy and told him when and why he had made a play that they had just seen next to the highway.

“When I got off, the co-pilot, who did know me, told him: you screwed up,” he says, laughing.

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His real name is an enigma, but his favorite places are not.

He himself captures them in his works, where the Mediterranean is so present that it is easy to sense that the Costa del Sol is his home.

It sneaks into his canvases in the form of sunsets, palm trees and beaches.

Landscapes with characters who sunbathe in the sun, let the hours pass without haste or dive as he does on his favorite coast, Nerja.

His canvases practically make up a diary, a reflection of his daily life at home, on the coast or in the countryside.

They are places that give him energy and where everything that inspires him happens while he spends time with his friends, the same ones with whom he held his first spray can at 13 years old.

That started like a game, but it got to him.

He developed his signature, found new places to capture it and, above all, explored formulas and techniques to do so, although along the way he amassed a good collection of police complaints and fines.

“On the street, whatever you do is illegal, but I always prefer places that don't affect anyone.

I don't paint a car, a shop window or any place where I wouldn't like to be painted,” he says.

Imon Boy observes another of his works in Vélez-Málaga.Garcia-Santos (El Pais)

From painting on walls, street furniture, platforms, breakwaters or abandoned houses, he moved on to the classrooms of the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Malaga.

There his eyes were opened even more to obtain a more global vision of the art world.

“That stage helped me visualize my work in other places beyond the street,” she explains.

His first sale came when he was in his early twenties.

It was precisely a drawing that she made in one of those new formats, a paper, while she sat in the back row of her university classes.

A young Swiss man who followed him on social networks was interested when he saw it and bought it for 100 euros.

“That changed everything.

Suddenly there was someone unknown who was interested in my work and without anyone's intermediation it was sold: it was something pure,” he says.

That same drawing, he calculates, would now cost about 1,000 euros.

He had uploaded photographs of his early works to Esflog and then to Fotolog.

Instagram, where he now has almost 76,000 followers, has become his great showcase.

Through direct messages he received his first clients and also his first offers from galleries.

In 2016 he made his collective debut in Sydney.

In 2017 he made his solo debut in Córdoba.

Since then he has exhibited with galleries such as La Causa, Woaw Gallery, Moosey and Yusto Giner in Barcelona, ​​Marbella, Chicago, Madrid, Geneva, London, Shanghai, Dubai, New York, Taiwan, Hawaii, Ibiza, Mexico and Japan.

Influences of the nineties

In Hong Kong he opened an exhibition on January 5 – his solo debut in Asia – with the help of the powerful gallery AishoNanzuka, which has among its staff Javier Calleja, also from Malaga, with a successful career.

“He is someone who has helped me a lot.

Not only because of the conversations we have had or people I have met thanks to him;

also because he is showing me that it is possible.

He is opening a path that other artists of my generation are now following,” he highlights.

We have it all

sums up Imon Boy's work well.

The pieces that will be shown until February 3 are like an album of summer memories of a place, Malaga, where many go on vacation but where he is lucky enough to reside.

Savoring a few beers at sunset, diving on crystal-clear beaches, walks with your surfboard on your way to the beach or a nighttime swim in the pool are some of those moments that highlight your particular

carpe diem

with friendship as a background.

The protagonists of Imon Boy's work always reflect sympathy and innocence.

They fit well.

They are young people with rounded shapes and influenced by cinema and video games, who go to the beach, listen to music, look closely at their mobile phones, read, dive, draw on a table, get ready for a date or open the refrigerator at midnight .

Like anyone his age, like anyone at any age.

They also experience bucolic scenes full of pink and orange sunsets.

“It could be my friends, it could be me.

Everything is open to the public's reading,” explains who has also turned some of them into sculptures for his exhibitions and in an edition of art objects launched by AllRightsReserved last November.

Their protagonists are frequently accompanied by police.

The police anecdotes that he himself has experienced on the street are a source of inspiration for many works.

Always with a touch of irony, the agents fine the characters, take them away in handcuffs, mark their works, and keep watch with flashlights.

Or they act funny and end up covered in spray.

Imon Boy in front of another of his works in Vélez-Málaga.Garcia-Santos (El Pais)

In the simple apartment where he lives, this artist has dozens of notebooks scattered everywhere.

In some cases he tries again and again creative ways to represent his signature on walls, abandoned infrastructure or old advertising billboards, such as those that can be seen along the A-7 highway as it passes through Axarquía and which he usually renews. every two years as long as they survive.

Others involve a journey into his daily life, like an album of memories told in hundreds of sketches and ideas to be realized.

Only a few end up on his canvas, resting on two plastic paint cans or Montana spray boxes in the living room.

When he doesn't go outside he works there, in a small space full of jars, brushes and markers among which his two cats,

Benito

and

Pompón

, walk stealthily .

Now, yes, these walls are empty because all of his latest works are in Hong Kong, an exhibition that will be followed by a collective exhibition in Barcelona in February.

Now he decides which other projects he will join throughout 2024. He has doubts.

And he says it smiling because for about four years now he has allowed himself the luxury of choosing, of deciding his own work rhythms, of rejecting offers.

Making a living from art is not easy, but he, for now, has achieved it.

“It is not easy to pay rent, freelance and the rest of the expenses by selling your work.

Few of my generation have achieved it and that keeps me grounded.

“Choosing who I work with, deciding my times: that is my freedom,” concludes who today identifies more with the canvas than with the wall, but who will never stop going out on the street or traveling in his caravan full of stickers.

Shall we paint?

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