MANILA, Philippines — To celebrate the final part of "La Casa De Papel," Netflix teamed up with four Filipino artists to create artwork inspired by some of the most iconic imagery and moments from all four parts of the hit series.
The artwork, called #LaCasaDePapelChallenge, is a tribute to some of the greatest and most memorable moments of the show. Each artist created paper artwork in his or her own signature style.
Patrick Cabral recreated The Royal Mint of Spain.
“I have been doing paper art since I was a kid. I grew up in a rural area where art materials are scarce. I gravitated to paper because it's everywhere. We had a project in high school which involved cutting letters out of paper and my passion for paper-cutting grew from then on. My style is ultra-maximalist. More is more,” Patrick said.
He said he picked the Royal Mint “because it's the embodiment of the enemy. The corrupt system. I like the juxtaposition of something so powerful with something fragile like paper.”
John Ed De Vera made art inspired by the Plan Chernobyl. He said he started loving paper art during his college years.
“Technically, I combine both papier tole and kirigami to create depth in my artworks. The shadows created by the layers and protrusions of the paper add a certain dimensionality to my pieces as a result,” John said.
He said that his artwork is her personal homage to surrealism.
“The blimp was used (to release 140 million Euros over Madrid) as a distraction in Part 3, while the Dali Mask, as we all know, has become an iconic symbol of resistance that has inspired a lot of people to fight with the Professor and the team. The red money coming out of the blimp forms the jumpsuit holding the blimp. The overall visual imagery is my personal homage to surrealism,” he said.
Meanwhile, Mansy Abesamis' artworks are Bella Ciao and Bank of Spain.
“I’ve been into papercutting since 2012. I love how it’s very therapeutic and meditative. It helps you focus on just one thing, on one thing that you can control – something which is very useful especially in the kind of world that we live in right now. No matter how things get overwhelming, when I am working on a papercut, the only thing that matters is that I cut. And cut. And cut again so I can finish the piece and be able to share a new story to the world,” she said.
“Also, papercutting to me is like reverse painting! In painting, you add elements or paint to tell a story but in papercutting, you take away unnecessary parts to tell or create stories. And that’s pretty amazing to me,” she added.
According to Mansy, she chose the Dali Mask with the Bella Ciao lyrics and the Bank of Spain as inspirations because these symbolize the system.
“I worked on two papercut pieces. The first one is the Dali Mask with the Bella Ciao lyrics! Bella Ciao is the gang’s battle cry! It unites and makes them stronger as a unit. They’re able to overcome every challenge, every twist, every dead end because of this. And this is even reinforced by the Dali mask and the red jumpsuit – a symbol of resistance against the system. It’s also a great equalizer. It’s a reminder that the thieves and hostages actually want the same thing – to be free from the system,” she said.
“The second piece is my version of the Bank of Spain. It symbolizes the system. In the series, they showed a papercut of the building – it looks so serious and rigid, as expected. So I thought of adding my own elements, fun details, quirky elements, and flowy lines to remind us that no matter how tough, daunting, and impossible to change the systems seem, humans are still the ones who run it. And there’s always something we can do to change the systems in our lives if we want to. It’s in our hands."
Sarjit Singh, meanwhile, created the Red origami bird and Alicia’s teddy bear.
“I worked on two pieces for this collaboration. The first is the Professor’s red origami bird, which has played a big role in the show from the very beginning. As a lover of Origami artwork, I was so happy to see it featured so prominently in such a popular show, and I hope it inspired many others to try Origami themselves,” he said.
“The second is Inspector Alicia Sierra’s teddy bear from Part 3, which she strategically used to take down Nairobi because it belonged to her son. No spoilers on what happened next,” he added.