Aileen Friedman

A precious nugget in a field of gold

Age is not a requirement for talent! I discovered this when I met Mario Jose Martinez Corte’s (aka Efors) an extremely talented and young graffiti artist.

He discovered his talent fifteen years ago when still in high school and started drawing graffiti in the streets of his hometown Naucalpan, Mexico City. He quit school and concentrated on teaching himself the art of graffiti painting.

The prize in a competition he had entered and ultimately won was to paint a mural on the outside wall of Stadia Azteca in Mexico City. He got a lot of exposure and great recognition from this achievement. His work has been entered in many competitions all buying him the recognition he desired.

Wanting to expand his work and practice the airbrush technique, he worked on motorbikes, cars, actually any surface that got offered to him to paint.

At this time there was a big movement for graffiti artists in Mexico City, he started to travel around Mexico asking permission or even begging to paint the walls of houses to better his style and technique as well as to get noticed. After a while of doing this, he got approached by prospective clients and so started his business.

Efors breakthrough came when he went to visit his sister in Cancun a few years ago and while he was there a friend asked him to pop over to Cozumel as he had organized a mural for Efors’ to paint. This mural is at the Hard Rock Cafe in Puerto Mayo. He immediately fell in love with the peaceful and calm lifestyle and decided to stay. It took some time for him to get more work but slowly it happened. His work can be seen all over Cozumel;

Hard Rock Cafe in Puerto Maya,

Sky Reef restaurant,

Kutz Park at El Cedral –the wall at the swimming pool,

La Perlita on 85^th Street,

Rasta Bar,

and the Estadio Sic. Javier Rojo Gomez Baseball Park on 30^th Ave.

Iberoestar,

But to me, the most beautiful mural I have seen in a very long time (it took my breath away)  is on 95^th Ave at Dave’s house –  Dave’s House & Jungle Tours.

These photos got taken by Mik ‘n Drik Photography.

Dave’s house; Efors was painting the mural at the Baseball Park on 30^th Ave when Dave noticed him and appraoched him. Dave has travelled extensively all over the world, but his passion lies with the Chiapas jungle. He has tons of photos, and he wished to have his favourite memories painted onto the front wall of his house. The next day Efors went to visit Dave; Dave told him how he loves the colour of the trees and the wildlife and as he spoke Efors worked on a rough design. Dave liked his idea, and artistic insight and a week later Efors began what took a month and a bit to complete. He desired to give Dave every idea he came up with; the Mayan ruin was Efors’s idea. Dave was extremely impressed, with Efors’ creativity, passion and artistic blessing that now he wants to complete the upper level of the house in the near future.

Efors’s talents not only lay with graffiti, but he paints portraits of any kind, he even paints on clothing. He loves to work with charity organizations; recently he donated T-shirts for a good cause.

Another great talent Efors got blessed with is as a tattoo artist. He works free-hand as well as tracing but prefers the free-hand style. Sometimes a client does not know what tattoo or portrait they exactly want, and that is where Efors excels. He will bring your idea or dream to life.

With all this talent his passion is with graffiti. A dream he wishes to fulfil one day is to travel to Jamaica and paint some Bob Marley graffiti there.

For all the young ladies reading this article, Efors is single, but taken!

Efors lives by a quote; “I live to paint, and I paint to live.”

Efors is a gem in Cozumel, look around and absorb his talent.

You can contact him on;

Phone:             +52 987 113 1323

Email:              stylosmanpin@gmail.com

Facebook;        stylos manos pintadas (Efors has many photos exposing his amazing talent.)

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