By Lindsayt | Published on Friday, November 26, 2010.

The Brazilian twins and the American team up for a huge project in Sao Paolo

Hot off the presses are pictures from a product of an Os Gemeos and Espo tag-team. The artists painted the walls of a new art center in Sao Paulo, taking inspiration from the community and images from candy wrappers to pizza boxes and dentist signs.

At the TEDxPhilly event where Stephen Powers, a.k.a Espo, spoke, he presented the project, talking about his respect for "the twins" and how they bring color to grey walls all around their native Brazil and abroad. He talked about their social content and how it reflects the community, and brought up photos showing the Philly tagging style versus Sao Paolo, with both claiming to have started the tall, elongated letters that reflect the height of the tagger.

They used the same motivations for this project, playing off the community members that passed them each day as they painted. There are walls that read "Bene & Beno", the names of the cops that hung out across the street, and caricatures of the local pizza shop owner adorned with a signature red Phillies baseball cap. The owner is actually dressed as a policeman, though his character is placed next to the metal-barred doorway; when the door opens against the wall, the cop appears to be locked up!

At the beginning, it wasn't so easy to get the neighbors' names. If a strange man asked you "What's your name?" you probably would respond on a need-to-know basis. Eventually, as the walls went up, the people came running in hopes to see their name on the wall too.

The team glorified in name dentists, cops, parking attendants and street-grocers, but also challenged Sao Paulo graffiti. Espo explained that the reason Os Gemeos gets away with a lot of their characters, and why they don't get buffed, is because of the colors they bring to the grey walls of the city. He wanted to tag in a single color, was met with resistance, but ultimately succeeded. Enjoy the pictures!