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Striking Mural of a Woman With a Box Cleverly Plays With the Landscape

Italian street artist MP5 recently completed a beautiful monochromatic mural that's both visually bold and cleverly plays with the surrounding landscape. Entitled Root Of Evil, it's located in Abruzzo, Italy where it was painted during the Visione Periferica Street Art Festival. The eye-catching piece features a woman, sitting, as she opens a box and lets crows fly free.

MP5 has used only black and white paint to craft the image and drawn thick outlines that contour the subject's body for a striking effect. While the mural primarily occupies the side of a home, it extends beyond the walls to flow onto the sidewalk and even reach surrounding buildings. This gives the illusion that from certain angles the small birds are flying away.

Root Of Evil was inspired by the legend of Pandora's box, in which a woman named Pandora curiously opens a locked box. Unfortunately, by doing so, she releases all the evils of humanity like plagues and diseases. We see a similar theme in MP5's mural where the building's window is used as a “box,” and the artist has skillfully made a crow look as if it's emerging from the package.

MP5 website
via [L'Acte Gratiut and Street Art News]

Sara Barnes

Sara Barnes is a Staff Editor at My Modern Met, Manager of My Modern Met Store, and co-host of the My Modern Met Top Artist Podcast. As an illustrator and writer living in Seattle, she chronicles illustration, embroidery, and beyond through her blog Brown Paper Bag and Instagram @brwnpaperbag. She wrote a book about embroidery artist Sarah K. Benning titled 'Embroidered Life' that was published by Chronicle Books in 2019. Sara is a graduate of the Maryland Institute College of Art. She earned her BFA in Illustration in 2008 and MFA in Illustration Practice in 2013.
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