Nense Tango paints strays

Nense Tango's walls are full of dogs. Dobermans, hounds, two dogs walking past a little green house in France. Some look lost. Most look like they're on their way somewhere else.

So is the painter. Nense left Chile eight years ago and hasn't really stopped since: New Zealand, then Australia, now Berlin, with a summer of walls across Europe in between. "The idea of being 'a stray' is based on this lifestyle," Nense says.

Nense answered our questions by email, in a second language. "Hope my English makes it haha." It does. Here are the answers, in Nense's own words.

Dad's spray cans

It started at 14, with a brother and a hidden spot. "One day we were hanging out with my brother, and I told him that we should do graffiti, that I knew this hidden spot," Nense says. "Then we took some spray cans my dad had in the garage and sneaked into an abandoned construction site."

The first pieces weren't exactly original. "We did our first throw-ups stealing the style from a graffiti font generator type of website haha. After that we never stopped painting. My brother does graffiti nowadays as well."

The name grew the way tags do. "Nense it's an evolution from my previous tag, which had a bit of a timeline, going from Sio, to Sione, Sionen, Nensio, and finally Nense."

And Tango? "The Tango part is a bit of a secret. But let's say it's a fun story."

Learning by looking

The work sits somewhere between a gallery painting and a wall: big faces and animals broken into sharp planes of pink, lilac and teal. None of it came from art school. "I never studied art formally, I would say I learnt just by painting, but mostly by observing, looking a lot."

What Nense looked at most was contemporary painting and graphic design. "Probably this mix gave me a big appetite for textures, bold brushstrokes, sharp edges and nostalgic palettes. That's my jam."

Chasing the dream

"My journey started in 2019," Nense says. "I lived in New Zealand during the pandemic years, then moved to Australia due to the travel bubble between the countries, and now I am residing in Berlin/Germany."

The reason was simple. "I moved out of Chile trying to internationalize my career as an artist, 'chasing the dream' lets say."

In Australia, Nense painted at the Brisbane Street Art Festival in 2022 and left walls around Melbourne, from Hosier Lane to Fitzroy, and up in Cairns.

The stray

Berlin hasn't changed the work much, Nense says. Moving has. "Nowadays living in Germany, I can't say Berlin itself has changed my work so far, but being a full time immigrant for so long has. It's one of the main reasons and topics behind my art practice, why I started painting dogs."

“The idea of being "a stray" is based on this lifestyle.”

The other thread is darker. Nature and the human condition come up again and again on the walls, and Nense doesn't pretend to be hopeful about it. "I can be quite pessimistic about the development of humanity. It's hard not to think about it, especially with all the bullshit going on in the world."

"It's impossible to get away from it, so it gets to my art practice naturally."

Displacement

The wall Nense is proudest of is the one at the top of this page: two dogs walking past a house, on a gable end in Quéven, France, painted last year for the Just Paint festival. It's called Displacement.

"So many things I can say about this project," Nense says. "I feel it is my first step into big formats; also had the chance to work with an amazing group of people (big shout out to the Just Paint crew), who also encouraged me to go more political; I could explore a new visual language."

Ten days on a lift

The biggest wall so far came in August, in Crimmitschau, Germany: ten days of painting after two months on the road. Nense had sprained a foot a few days earlier, on the project before. "Did not make it better."

"Painting for so long can get really exhausting, one part being the physical effort, 14 hours on top of a lift is fun, but mixed with very poor sleeping and heavy lifting/movement can be extreme for the body."

The harder part is in your head. "Projects like this require you to become a shaolin monk, waking up at 5am, focusing to get the job done, mixing the right colors, and handling the stress of having such a big challenge."

“What keeps me doing it is the need, I don't see myself doing anything else.”

A summer of festivals sounds like a dream, and partly it is. "You meet a lot of new people, travel to a crazy amount of different places, you spend a lot of hours on lifts (I used to have Vertigo, now I'm a height junkie kinda)."

It's also relentless. "Last season, for three and a half months, I was at home just 1 day in between projects, only to do laundry, wait for it to dry, then take the next plane (and repeat)."

Not about the city

You'd think painting in a new country every few weeks would change what goes on the wall. Nense says no. "I probably have an unpopular opinion saying this, but I'm not a 'surroundings' inspired artist."

"I believe art practice is very personal, and should come from a place of inner experimentation," Nense says. What does change things is the wall itself: "the format, how can I place my composition and idea on a predetermined architectural space, independently from the concept that brings a country or a city in particular."

The moon and the cliff

More than 20,000 people follow Nense on Instagram, and a video of the Crimmitschau wall has been played more than a million times. Nense doesn't trust the numbers.

"I feel social media is hyper volatile, one day you can create one of your favorite paintings/walls, and people won't 'like it' or interact as much, and eventually you can paint a quick wall with some paint leftovers, or even a more commercial one, and get a lot of engagement."

"Personally I feel like those numbers never reflect reality, out of those 20k lets say, probably there is just a 1000 people interested (hopefully). That is still a lot, but can be tricky."

“It's like the fable of the moon, never chase it at night, you might not see the cliff.”

Not a creative person?

We asked what Nense would say to someone who thinks they're not a creative person. The answer was one line.

“If they believe so, it becomes true.”

See more of Nense's walls on Instagram at @nensetango.