Xabi Tapia

Xabier Tapia, who signs Xabxab, is a Basque Country artist closely tied to Urrugne, the village he calls home. He worked as a construction engineer in Paris before coming back to the Basque coast and returning to drawing, trading paper for wood, cardboard and eventually walls. Self-taught, he paints in black and white acrylic, rendering faces, hands and eyes with photographic precision because he finds monochrome gives light more impact. His walls include the facade of the Itsas Mendi cinema in Urrugne, which he started in public during his exhibition ".black.", a portrait of his mother, "Ama", on a pelota wall in Bayonne, pieces at Socoa and on La Rhune, and a 17-metre mural at the Lycée de Navarre in Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port.