Rio 2016 graffiti artist clinches Guinness World Record

Gold, silver and bronze have already been handed out, but one special award for a Rio 2016 participant came shortly after the Olympics had drawn to a close.

Brazilian street artist Eduard Kobra and his sprayer colleagues now hold the Guinness World Record for the largest spray paint mural by a team, the organization announced earlier this week. The work, which was commissioned by Rio 2016 to decorate the Olympic Boulevard, measures 3,000 square meters (over 32,000 square feet).

"Color, style, and cultural vibrancy. Three adjectives that describe the city of Rio de Jainero, and the illustrious 560-foot wall that now holds a Guinness World Records title," wrote the Guinness World Records on their website.

Until now the record for largest spray paint mural by a team was held by Mexican artist Ernesto Rocha, whose mural "Mazatlan" was completed in 2009 and measures 1,678 square meters.

The faces of the world

Entitled "Ethnicities," Kobra's mural depicts representatives of indigenous people from five continents on the globe in a reference to the five Olympic rings.

"There is growing intolerance in the world," said Kobra, 40. "Look at Europe, where people are rejecting refugees, rejecting what is different. I hope this mural, in the Olympic spirit, will help remind us that we are all different but all one: the human race."

Represented among the faces in the murals are the Karen people from Thailand, the Huli of Papua New Guinea, the Tapajos from the Brazilian Amazon, the Chukchi of Siberia and the Mursi people of Ethiopa.

Massive explosion of color

Sponsored by the Rio 2016 organizing committee and city hall, the wall is located in Rio's formerly run-down port district, which was overhauled for the Olympics. Part of the three-kilometer Olympic Boulevard, the wall served as a backdrop to outdoor celebrations that took place during the Games, including live music, street art performances, nightly fireworks, food trucks and kids activities.

According to the Guinness World Records, it took 180 buckets of acrylic paint, 2,800 cans of spray paint, and seven hydraulic lifts to finish the piece.

Kobra and his team of four artists spent about two months on the project, working up to 12 hours a day. They first had to prepare the cinder-block wall by plugging holes before they could begin painting.

Kobra has works around the world

#From Sao Paulo, Brazil's largest city, Eduardo Kobra is a renowned street artist with 285,000 followers on Instagram and nearly 30,000 on Facebook. He has created street art in cities around the world, including Tokyo, Dubai, New York and London.

Kobra says he grew up tagging walls in a poor neighborhood of Sao Paulo: "The street was my way to socialize, have fun and also protest against social exclusion." But now he only creates graffiti "with permission," he added.

kbm/ rb (AFP, dpa)