Happy New Year, street-art fans! The calendar has just turned a big page, but the Street-Art Contest by CCC is still going strong... and with nearly 80 participants stronger than ever! Since this is a time to look back into the old year, here is a mural I found during our vacation on Cozumel island in April. It looks ... interesting, though I have been torn between submitting it for the contest or just get rid of it. In the end the contest won, so here it is this beautiful piece of ugliness for all of you to enjoy!

The mural is a long one, featuring a variety of styles, which however don't seem to compete with each other. The graffiti part in the middle looks like it's part of the piece, notwithstanding the alost photo-realistic portrait on the left, and the cartoonish figures on the right of it. Let's take a closer look:

At first look I thought this might be a freakish rendering of Rick and Morty (which I have not completely abandoned, by the way), where the kid is holding on to the old scientist's obscenely long tongue. Morty himself has a pair of devilish horns sprouting on his forehead, and is holding a spray can, having created that graffiti art. His T-shirt reads Locos Playa which translates to something like Crazy Beach, which may in fact be the artist's tag.

On the other side we have the face of this handsome looking old-timer in his youth. Who could it be? Maybe one of those famous Mexican musicians from back in the day, which my wife would recognize? (I just asked her and she didn't.) The mustache is actually so iconicly weird that it draws the attention away from his face. Of course, Salvador Dalí once had a stache like this, but the face is clearly not Dalí. So who is it then? Zapata? Not really. Maybe one of you has an idea...

Once again, the digital lettering next to the portrait says Locos Playa. The acronym on the bottom looks like it's an IHCNM, but I tried to do a search on both, and neither led me to the page of a muralist. So that's about where I'll leave it. Interesting imagery, completely unrelated to each other, except for it's cool looking. Or is it really? Not even sure about that. Still, it's weird enough to make it interesting to look at for a while.

If you liked this, click on any of the thumbnails to see my previous Mexican Murals posts: