"Impact people, without impacting nature."
- Saype
A self-taught artist, Saype is now known for his monumental frescoes made straight on the ground, most often on grass.
Beginning his career as a young graffiti artist, Saype quickly received recognition, which led to his first gallery show at the age of 16. From 2012, he developed a new artistic approach in parallel to his studio work. Starting from the observation that graffiti is diluted in the environment of our cities and that an excessive visual solicitation leads the passer-by to not even look at them anymore, Saype searches a new way to address people. Influenced by his readings as well as by the democratization of the drones in Europe, which gives him an easy access to aerial views, he started painting on grass.
To do so, he invented a 100% biodegradable paint based on water, chalk, charcoal and milk proteins, and developed a process that allowed him to create gigantic frescoes on the ground. Since then, he has made such frescoes all around the world, with a concern to appeal to people and society while minimizing his impact on nature. Saype's ephemeral works disappear after a month as the grass on which they are painted grows and visitors pass by. His main goal is to put his art at the service of human beings, always with optimism and in a poetic way.
In 2019, Saype embarked on a global scale project: to symbolically create the world's largest human chain by repeatedly painting a pattern of outstretched, intertwined and united hands. Carried out over several years, this ambitious project entitled "Beyond Walls" aims to encourage people to help each other, be kind to one another and create a sense of togetherness. Starting in June 2019 at the foot of the Eiffel Tower, the project recently made a stop in Venice for its thirteenth instalment, as part of the 2022 Biennale, after having passed through Ouagadougou, Istanbul, Cape Town and the United Nations headquarters in New York.
Guillaume Legros, was born in 1989 in Belfort, France, and is known under the pseudonym Saype, formed from the contraction of "say" and "peace", two words he has used in graffiti from a very young age. In 2018, his self-financed project in support of the SOS Méditerranée organization carried out in the heart of Geneva received considerable media exposure by being seen by 120 million people worldwide. He was notably named one of Forbes "30 Under 30" most influencial people in the world in the field of art and culture in 2019.