Looking To The Future, 2025

Zurik  

Spray acrylic and airbrush on canvas — 100 × 100 × 2 cm — Unique piece
Intention note — Looking To The Future
"Looking To The Future" associates portrait and lettering in an unprecedented relationship of equivalence. ZURIK embodies the principle in her own words: "I like the idea of combining portraits and letters, with the hair serving as a guiding thread, making each thing the main figure. The letters do not accompany the character, nor the character the letters; both are of equal importance." This parity is not rhetorical: it is formal, visible, constitutive of the composition.
"Looking To The Future" is more than just a self-portrait or a style piece: it is a formal and philosophical proposition about what "looking to the future" can mean — with open eyes, intact curiosity, and style as a compass. ZURIK describes herself as a person "looking to the future, both in my personal life and in my work," driven by a "constant need to explore."
The portrait in Graffiti: a subversion of the established order
In the history of Graffiti, the human figure has long remained secondary — decoration, accessory, a peripheral character serving the name. ZURIK overturns this hierarchy: the portrait and the letter generate each other, the character's hair becoming the very material of the lettering, or vice versa. This fusion is a formal contribution to the language of Graffiti, an expansion of its expressive possibilities.
The joint use of spray and airbrush in "Looking To The Future" speaks to ZURIK's technical sophistication: the airbrush, a precision tool used in illustration and model making, is mobilized here for the details of the face and the nuances of the complexion, where the spray builds the volumes and effects of the lettering. This hybridization of tools is consistent with an approach that rejects boundaries between disciplines.
"I have always been perceived as a person looking to the future, both in my personal life and in my work. I feel a constant need to explore." — ZURIK
Trajectory of an international artist
ZURIK was born in 1990 in Bogotá, Colombia, and moved to Barcelona in 2016, where she has resided since. Her work has been exhibited in many countries — including Australia, France, Germany, the United States, Italy, Portugal, and Mexico — and in reference festivals such as the Roskilde Festival (Denmark), the Yardworks Festival (Scotland), or Gargar Festival (Spain). Her collaborations include brands such as Converse, Coca Cola, Sephora, Seat, Montana Colors, Hasbro, and EA (Need for Speed).
Her work is the subject of major publications: "Women Street Artists of Latin America: Art Without Fear" (Sjakoo, 2023), "World Atlas of Street Art" (Rafael Schacter and Lachlan MacDowall, Lunwerg, 2022), and "TRAMONTANA #5" (Montana Colors, 2021). These references place her in the international mapping of influential Graffiti and urban art artists.
Institutional links
In 2021, the work "Eye contact" by ZURIK entered the permanent collection of the STRAAT Museum in Amsterdam, one of the world's reference museums for urban art, founded in the former NDSM workshops and which currently houses one of the most important collections of street art indoors. This presence in the permanent institutional collection consecrates an artistic approach that transcends the boundaries of Graffiti to enter the field of contemporary art in the broader sense.
Formal analysis
On the 100 × 100 cm square format, the composition of "Looking To The Future" is organized around a central axis — the face — from which the lettering and hair radiate. The symmetry is not perfect, and it is this slight asymmetry that gives the piece its lively character. The character's gaze — directed towards something off-frame, towards the "future" of the title — creates a tension between the canvas space and the imagined space beyond.
The coexistence of spray and airbrush creates two distinct visual textures that dialogue without contradicting each other: the material effects of the spray in the lettering and the backgrounds contrast with the softness of the airbrush transitions in the rendering of the face. This controlled heterogeneity is one of the most interesting features of the work.
Certificate of authenticity issued by the artist
Looking To The Future is presented by OUTSIDE ART