NEVERCREW’s Playful, Interdisciplinary Murals and Installations

Belgrade, Serbia 2014

Swiss artists Pablo Togni and Christian Rebecchi join forces for a variety of interdisciplinary art projects as NEVERCREW. The duo is known for their large scaled murals and public art initiatives that share common grounds with not only graffiti, but illustration and graphic design as well. Their integrative style explores the relationship between public space, the artwork and the viewer — the strong interaction among the elements creates a balanced whole.

Most of their work showcases a set of realistic looking animals and human forms that interact within a geometric, gridded world. The pieces often blend with everyday scenery of wherever their work is located, making an extraordinary mesh of the real and the surreal and putting the viewer in perspective as they interact and think about the work in relation to its placement. One of their latest public works appears in the playground walls of an elementary school in Lugano, Switzerland. The massive mural fools the eye as it gives a sense of depth to a flat surface. Within it, we find a playful, cartoonish bunny in front of what seems to be shelves of toys; adjacent to it, we find another smaller mural that features an astronaut overlooking the playground — the reflection of the physical space shows on the astronaut’s visor.

NEVERCREW began working together in 1996 and since then have combined their mutual passions and personalities to create pieces of public artwork that harvests public memory and becomes embedded in the day-to-day visual language of a specific space and culture. “Everything is connected together”, the duo says. “It is merged in living compositions that change just because they live, evolving in time and space.”

Mural at Stroke Urban Art Fair, 2013