Carlos Llobet Montealegre (b. 1981)

Labels by Ryan Moretta

For some people, work is all they ever know. The meaning of work is different for everyone. Work can take place in an office, at home, in a factory, or in a conference room; but in Carlos Montealegre’s artwork, a man’s workplace is the street where he paints to support himself financially. Montealegre shares his experiences living in Costa Rica through his prints to express the struggles of working-class people in his country. The artist describes the varying types of daily work many Costa Ricans endure as informal jobs that can be tiring and low-paying. He promotes citizens’ lives with dignity, while also bringing attention to difficulties many withstand. Optimistically, Artista Callejero (Street Artist) shows the beauty of doing what you love, regardless of money and life’s struggles. 

For Kids:

Artista Callejero is Spanish for Street Artist, like this man sitting on a sidewalk, painting on a canvas. Carlos Montealegre’s artwork revolves around the working-class people in his home country, Costa Rica, and what they do to make a living. Instead of using oil paint and canvases, he creates screen prints on paper called serigraphs where each color ink is printed separately in layers. How many different colors are there in the artwork? What do you think the man is painting? If you had the opportunity to do what you loved and got paid for it, what would it be?