With a passion for marrying the past with the future, Dutch artist FLEKS One is right at home in Taiwan. The country, as with many Asian countries, is a melting pot of traditions that are mixed and stirred with all the trimmings of a fast-paced modern world. Bright lights, large buildings, and plenty of concrete seem the perfect location for one of FLEKS’s vibrant robot characters. And this time, he was able to go BIG!

The Lingya district gets a new robot

Thanks to the ARCADE Art Gallery and the district of Lingya in the city of Kaohsiung, the project came to life during the 2020 Street Art Festival which is curated by the ARCADE team. Along with classic curation duties, organizing such a project is no simple task in a city with plenty of people and minimal space.

The first step was the building of the scaffolding to cover the complete side of the 5-story commercial/residential building. The next was marking up this complex design which cleverly integrated the residential windows into an uncompromised design. Followed by the rolling of the larger surface areas with acrylic paint before the fun began with the Montana BLACK and GOLD cans.

7 days were needed to complete the work in which quite obviously no corners were cut. The final result, a dynamic robot character which takes on some of the building’s own character, including that of the owner’s car tire shop on the ground floor of the building. With space and perspective difficult to perceive, some impressive drone footage does the artwork justice for those of us that may never see it in the flesh.