“I chose whales because despite of their size, so many are found on our beaches with the stomach full of plastic,” says Alessio Bolognesi about this new mural for the ST.ART festival in Italy. “It’s a symbol, in my mind, of how even the huge animals are so powerless.”

The image of large seafaring creatures washing up on shore starved of nutrition and bloated with plastic is becoming more common as we continue to poison ourselves and the world. Not surprisingly, similar images are also popping up in Street Art in other locations.

Originally from Ferrara in the north of Italy, the 3D graphic designer also once belonged to a graffiti crew as a kid, and he now balances professional design work with an increasing number of mural painting opportunities. Here in Provincia di Vicenza (Veneto region), he says he chose a whale drowning in plastic for this secondary school façade. But he didn’t want to be completely didactic, preferring to let the viewer make the connections themselves.

“I like to paint murals with a ‘multi-layer’ reading approach,” he explains. “You can look to the mural and just see the obvious image or you can try to go deeper and capture some more meaningful detail.”