Gustavo and Otavio, or it is Otavio and Gustavo?
The Brazilian street artist twins Gustavo and Otavio Pandolfo, who call themselves OSGEMEOS (os gemeos = “the twins” in Portuguese), are currently (August 2014) painting what will be, at 7,162 square meters (23,500 sq.ft.) their largest mural to date. This is one of the key events in the current Vancouver Biennale (see also the previous article). Commercial painters were hired to apply the undercoat of 15 colours on the six sand and gravel-filled silos at Ocean Concrete, which is on Vancouver’s Granville Island next to the public market, restaurants and the Emily Carr University of Art and Design. Throughout August Octavio and Gustavo, working from articulated lifts, will be spray-painting seven days a week. Over complex patterns, six characters will emerge, one per silo, each character alternately facing north (toward downtown) or south.
Granville Island. Photo © Evan Leeson
August 15, the underlying coats have been applied:
One of the many challenges facing the twins is that this is a working site, and the silos are in use with sand and gravel. Sometimes the material spills over the side: you can see, in the second photo, a streak of windblown sand down the nearest silo, only hours after the paint was rolled on. Rain is a problem, delaying the start of their work by two days. And on the water side, there is a very narrow area for the lifts to operate in, between conveyer belts, girders and pipes, and the silos. In effect, to paint that side, the only way they can “step back” as every artist needs to do is to either take a water taxi across to the other side of False Creek or walk up onto the Granville Street bridge which is where these photos were taken.
Sunday August 17, morning
As Michael Mann wrote recently in the weekly entertainment newspaper The Georgia Straight, the
360-degree, 23-metre-high public art project…will spread over the six Ocean Concrete silos on Granville Island. When it’s unveiled on September 7 for the 2014–2016 Biennale, not only will the mural be a beacon for art enthusiasts around the world, it’s certain to become the most Instagrammed landmark in Vancouver.
Ocean Concrete, south face, August 28
A promo video I created for the Vancouver Biennale’s Indiegogo campaign:
PUBLIC ART PRIVATE VIEWS 
Michael, thanks for this post. This art project that Os Gemeos is working on will be one of the largest, most exciting projects of the 2014 – 2016 Vancouver Biennale. I am most curious to see the before and after shots of the Ocean Concrete silos!