Hyuro: Beauty of a Tragedy. Impressum, Valencia, 2022.

Reprinted from the original review.

Beauty of a Tragedy gathers the work of the late Argentine muralist Hyuro (Tamara Djurovic), who died in 2020 at only forty-six, leaving behind one of the most thoughtful and quietly disruptive bodies of work to emerge from the street-art movement in the 2010s. Designed by Ângela Almeida and Maria Gómez-Senent, the book compiles murals, paintings, drawings, sketches, and Hyuro’s own texts. It also includes reflections from figures such as photographer Martha Cooper, street art festival curator Monica Campana, publisher/editor/curator Evan Pricco, and street artist Escif. Rather than presenting a conventional “street art monograph,” the publication reads more like a reflective archive of a mind at work—an artist trying to understand how individuals move through systems of power, vulnerability, and care.

Across its pages, Hyuro’s central concerns appear with clarity: the social conditions imposed on women, the quiet violence embedded in political systems, and the fragile dignity of ordinary lives. With descriptive texts and personal observations, the writing makes these motivations explicit. A mural in Fortaleza, Brazil examines the criminalization of abortion and the way the female body becomes “usurped territory” by the state; another, in Monteleone di Puglia, recalls a wartime uprising led by women protesting food restrictions under fascism. Elsewhere she turns to children affected by war, neighborhood life shaped by urban development pressures, or the internal contradictions that shape our identities. These are not decorative murals but acts of witness—images that look closely at, plainly reflect through metaphor and allusion—injustice without theatrical exaggeration.

You knew it then, but it becomes especially clear in the book just how dramatically Hyuro’s work diverged from the prevailing mood of the global street-art boom of the 2010s. While festivals multiplied and the movement embraced spectacle, branding, and easily digestible imagery, Hyuro worked in a different register. Her figures are often partially obscured, cropped, or faceless; gestures are restrained; color is quiet. Instead of offering instant visual gratification, her murals ask viewers to slow down and reflect. In her observations, Martha Cooper notes the deceptive simplicity of her approach—images drawn from everyday life but infused with the artist’s personal observations. Monica Campana, reflecting on Hyuro’s practice, sees a commitment to making the street feel more like a home, a space where vulnerability and resistance can coexist.

Text Steven P. Harrington & Jaime Rojo     Photos Diana Paun

Title: Hyuro: Beauty of a Tragedy
Published: Impressum. Valencia, 2022
Author: A collection of authors
Language: English

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