Flaco is an eagle owl who had lived for twelve years inside the Central Park zoo and who took advantage of an opportunity on February 2 and escaped. after someone vandalized and broke his cage.
Flaco has now become a celebrity, everyone wants to see him and photograph him, because as one more New Yorker he has shown that he can fend for himself in the big city.
“It may be that he planned it, it may be that he saw the opportunity and said ‘no more this’. And when he saw that they wanted to catch him, he said ‘no, I’m not going to those’. And now he showed that he alone can hunt and survive, I think it’s like an example of life,” said Carlos Arévalo (Calicho).
For this reason ‘Calicho’ painted Flaco on a wall in Freeman’s Alley in SOHO, full of colors and symbols that somehow represent New Yorkers and immigrants.
“An example for me and for many people who felt identified. And it is that many times we arrive in New York and we do not know what we are facing,” added Calicho. “Until we get to the city and sometimes we also get our own instincts to survive and live the day to day of this great metropolis.”
And in this Freema’s alley is where our owl and the famous Flaco come from, Calicho continued. “So he is accompanied by a message of” we love skinny “and he is accompanied by animals that for me can be of different races and show the multiculturalism of the city.”
Calicho has also survived in this city. He arrived three years ago from Bogotá Colombia and just like Flaco he changes colors in his facet as an artist, during the day he is Carlos Arévalo and he designs houses.
“I am an architect, but I also realized that I could generate art and that is where I created my brand as ‘Calicho Art’, and it is what has led me to paint on many walls and be in many galleries, especially in the city of NY,” Calicho said.
Calicho started painting in the middle of the pandemic.
We were at home all the time as if we were locked up, what we wanted the most was to go out, to feel the air, to be able to enjoy the city, that is why it was important for us to capture something that signified freedom.
Free as the Skinny Owl, which the zoo no longer intends to catch and has left to live in peace in Central Park, free as the wind.
