Bayonne Tourist Office
25 place des basques
After a three-week residency in Saint-Palais, where he created a mural trail inspired by the flight of a wood pigeon, the Madrid-based artist Taquen continues this symbolic thread in Bayonne with a mural titled El Proceso.
On the contemporary walls of the Tourist Office, he unveils a swarm of pigeons in motion.
The motif of this migratory bird — emblematic of the Basque Country — becomes a fluid and silent metaphor for passage: that of the birds, of course, crossing the Pyrenees southward, but also that of human beings. By choosing this place of transit, the Tourist Office, Taquen emphasizes the notions of departure, arrival, and crossing that he associates with all forms of migration — whether voluntary, touristic, or forced.
On one side of the building, shapes and colors assert themselves, almost carved by light; on the other, they fade into transparency, following the course of the sun and the geometry of the building designed by Gayet Roger Architectes.
A discreet yet sensitive work — one that reveals itself slowly to those who take the time to look.
Born in Madrid, Taquen is a visual artist and muralist whose work explores notions of balance, transition, and the connections between living beings. His murals, often created in situ, blend soft geometry with stylized representations of wildlife — especially birds, which he sees as symbols of freedom, movement, and belonging.
Trained in graphic arts, he has developed a mural language that is both minimal and poetic, where the painted gesture gives way to suggestion rather than direct depiction. His approach is always respectful of the places where he works: architecture, light, temporality, and local memory all inform his compositions.
Taquen is regularly invited to festivals across Europe and South America. He belongs to a generation of urban artists committed to grounding their practice in a respectful dialogue with the living world and the public space.
The first project proposed by Taquen was ambitious: a monumental painting, with a vast color gradient covering the entire façade from ground to roof. The building would have been completely transformed.
The Tourist Office team and the architects in charge supported the project, yet a slight concern emerged about its visual impact. Too bold? Too radical for such a central location?
Amid this almost real-time tension, the artist completely rethought his approach. Within a few hours, he presented an entirely new concept — more restrained, more subtle, yet completely unprecedented in his practice: a flock of wood pigeons, each painted freehand, in a single continuous line, without ever lifting the brush.
This self-imposed constraint turned the act of painting into a performance. It demanded total concentration, precise control of the body, and absolute confidence in the gesture. For Taquen, it was a risk. For us, a leap of faith.
It took many discussions, ongoing adjustments, and a shared trust in the artist’s ability to find the right form, at the right moment.
By the end of the project, doubt had given way to clarity. The work had found its rightful place — in perfect harmony with la place des Basques.
