Puerto Rico’s Yaucromatic, Pintalto and Casitas de Colores

Puerto Rico’s Yaucromatic, in Yauco, was an urban art intervention that started in 2017, which promoted economic growth, attracted tourism and reimagined vulnerable communities that were suppressed by class, prone to crime and had poor living conditions.

The intervention was developed by Jonathan Hernandez Leon, a community organizer and president of the not-for-profit organization Arte para Unir (Art to Unite).

The Yaucromatic, which was named by combining the names of the city Yauco and the chromatic color wheel, had four phases of separately organized interventions in Yauco, Puerto Rico. Artisans, creatives and community members painted houses, sidewalks, retaining walls and even boulders in a strategic manner to create colorful projects for observation.

“We created the project to empower the community,” Hernandez said. “Communities had problems with drugs and crime, and with art we transformed it.”

When the initiative started, organizers had to get permission from community members, who lived in the houses, to release work permits from the government, which allowed people to paint homes, clean streets and use heavy equipment. Residents in the area were not ready for the transformation, and some resisted the intervention because they did not want the extra attention.

“At the beginning it was difficult because of the resistance,” Hernandez said. “The idea was that the people were an integral part of the project, and not just receiving people to paint at their houses.”

After the project was described to the community and they better understood the urban improvement goals, they gave permission for the permits, which allowed planning, fundraising and work to begin. Hernandez described the intervention as a major success.

“They breathe peace into the community,” Hernandez said. “Something that did not necessarily happen before the project was made.”

The Yaucromatic intervention attracted more than a half million tourists to the city of Yauco since the inauguration four years ago. New businesses were started by Puerto Ricans and economic growth developed a new era of prosperity, as well as fame, for Yauco, Puerto Rico.

The Macromurals from Pintalto

Hernandez organized the collaboration of many artists, volunteers and community members to work on the Yaucromatic. Samuel González Rodríguez, president of the community art initiative Pintalto, was one of the people asked to join the Yaucromatic.

“I saw the first intervention of Pintalto in Manatí,” Hernandez said. “And I called on Samuel to be a part of the Yaucromatic.”

The Pintalto project, which was named from the combined words pintar (to paint) and alto (height), was a collection of comprehensive artistic interventions in Puerto Rico, which transformed low-income communities with painted mosaic formations on houses and structures. The goals of Pintalto were like those of the Yaucromatic.

The first physical project from Pintalto was in Manatí, a municipality in the northern region of Puerto Rico. Ganzález transformed a dilapidated bus stop in Boquillas, Manatí with his original mosaic style of painting in 2016, which also included an image of two paper airplanes painted in collaboration by the artist Manuel Abreu.

The Pintalto intervention in Manatí laid the groundwork for community attractions, urban improvement and the mosaic style painting strategy famously referred to as Macromural.

Yaucromatic 2

Yaucromatic 2 served as the second phase of Hernandez’s vision for the artistic interventions of Yauco in 2018. Hernandez asked González to spearhead the project and implement the Pintalto strategy of Macromural to help transform the neighborhood of Cantera in Yauco.

Cantera was a hillside community that overlooked Yauco’s dramatic view of urban communities in the southern mountains Puerto, Rico, which were covered with green vegetation, coffee fields and even plantain farms.

When Cantera was viewed from the south, the homes, streets and public spaces of the hillside community were visible from lower elevations. This perspective is where González envisioned the Marcromural for Yaucromatic 2.

“Introducing figures, and how I call them, mosaics, completely changes the atmosphere, and feeling of this place,” González said. “That is why when you see the project as a whole, you may not identify each building by its figure, but it’s like an optical illusion.”

The Cantera neighborhood was once the least visited place in Yauco, and after the artistic interventions of the Macromurals from Pintalto and the murals of many other artisans participating in the Yaucromatic, it became one of the most visited places in Puerto Rico. Yaucromatic 2 attracted local tourism as well as international attention for its beauty, creativity and urban transformation.

“So that gives you a heads up of how color and art can transform a community completely,” González said. “People from France, Japan, China, South America, literally the whole world has come here to witness this place.”

The Yacromatic and the Pintalto interventions also drew the attention of politicians, news agencies and musicians. The singers Ozuna, Lyannom, Lunay and Rauw Alejandro collaborated in the Yacromatic and recorded a music video for the single Luz Apagá in 2018.

“Having this project, it’s huge,” González said. “It gives a glimpse of what Puerto Ricans, when we unite, what we can do, and having not that much resources.”

Casitas De Colores

Gonzalez published a full-color book called Casitas de Colores in 2021, which described in detail the stories of the Macromurals from Pintalto and Yaucromatic. Additionally, how creatives and community members transformed six municipalities in Puerto Rico, including a watchtower in Añasco, Puerto Rico.

Mirador de Añasco was a Caribbean watchtower that stood three stories high on the West end of Puerto Rico in the municipality of Añasco. The watch tower, which overlooked the bay of Añasco, was in disrepair and the not-for-profit organization Cuidad Museo hosted a renovation in which they collaborated with Pintalto in 2019. The historic renovation gave the watchtower a new beginning and a place for tourism.

“They wanted to paint something related to my project in Añasco,” González said. “This tower needed attention, so, I suggested we use this place, and it has been a success.”

González also collaborated with Héctor Callazo Hernández (Hector PR), a prominent artist known for painting the flag of Puerto Rico in many locations, to recondition a public stage in San Germán, Puerto Rico.

La Concha Acustica was painted with the flag of Puerto Rico by Hector PR., and González contributed his Macromural strategy. This was another historic collaboration of Puerto Rican artists and community who improved an urban space with an artistic intervention in 2018.

“The creation of the work was quite complicated,” Hector PR said in a media post. “But as always, the sacrifice was worth it.”