Living Artists: Entes and Pesimo

• Courtesy 93 Crew

Entes or Pesimo? As part of our ongoing series profiling the street artists who have come to town for Living Walls, we came across a duo from Lima, Peru whose looping characters bring their hometown's chicha culture to life. The Living Walls rep who cornered them for us asked which of the two we'd like to hear from for the Culture Surfing interview — well, both, of course.

Because why split hairs? Entes and Pesimo, members of the 93 Crew, have been painting together for nine years. They rarely get up solo. (Maybe you can catch them, on dark nights, tagging the neighborhood.) Their tandem pieces are dope: Tableaus of city characters, curled up with knowing black cats, skin luminous with bright neon colors.

As of this week, Atlanta has its very own Entes-Pesimo pieces. At the Goat Farm, two boarded up doors feature the duo's signature portraits with raised eyebrows and a steady, level-chinned gaze. It's feels like the figures have staked out their space on the wall whether you like it or not. Really, the same could be said of Entes and Pesimo.

• Courtesy Entes and Pesimo
• The duo's recently completed Living Walls piece at the Goat Farm

The pair answered our interview questions together. Here's what they said. (Well actually they said it in Peruvian Spanish and we translated.)

How did you hear about Living Walls? Why'd you want to be a part of the festival?
E&P: We were about to go to last year's — we found it through the Internet and we were instantly interested. We like the idea of representing our culture through painting, it's a little bit like what we do in our city of Lima. It seemed important to us to go to places like Atlanta to talk about who we are.