image source, The shard
Gustavo Zuluaga wakes up at 4:30 a.m. every day and the first thing he sees out of his window is the Shard Tower, the tallest skyscraper in London, a landmark of the city.
This Colombian migrant has been working on the building’s cleaning team for nine years, but two months ago he was assigned an additional task.
The Shard asked him to create a painting that would serve as inspiration for the electronic lights that will illuminate the top of the tower this Christmas.
It was the opportunity he had been waiting for, so he accepted the challenge.
“I knew I had to do something at the height of this building,” he tells BBC Mundo.
“It changed my life”
Gustavo comes from Tuluá, a municipality in western Colombia.
He left the country in 2000 “in search of new opportunities.” He was initially in Spain and has settled in London since 2012.
In Colombia he worked in the fields and, as part of a family of artists, from the age of 18 devoted part of his time to painting, his great passion.
However, when he emigrated, he stopped painting.
“I hadn’t picked up a brush for more than 20 years until I started painting again during the pandemic thanks to my daughter,” he says.
image source, The shard
“She bought some canvases and asked me to help her finish a painting. I haven’t stopped painting since.”
Two years ago he started showing his work to his colleagues in the hope that someone would be interested in his work and allow him to exhibit his paintings.
And this year his dream came true.
A colleague showed Gustavo’s painting to The Shard’s marketing team and, seeing his talent, they asked him about what is now the most important work of his artistic career.
image source, The shard
“It changed my life,” he says. “Now the phone stops ringing, they ask me for interviews, they write to me online, I appear on TV, in podcasts…”
Additionally, it helped him feel closer to Colombia.
Thanks to his achievement, Gustavo is back in touch with friends and family who he hadn’t spoken to for a long time and who are now calling and writing to congratulate him.
“In Colombia I miss the family togetherness, the friends, especially at a time like Christmas,” he says wistfully.
“It is difficult to leave the country, but for me it is a pride to represent Colombia with this work.”
image source, The shard
A symbol of London
The Shard is a 95-story, 309m tall building on the banks of the River Thames, between the famous London Bridge and Tower Bridge, in the heart of the city.
There are offices of technology and financial companies, luxury restaurants and bars, as well as apartments and a five-star hotel.
In English the word “shard” means splinter. Hence the name of the tower, which looks like a sharp shard of glass.
image source, getty
It is the work of Italian architect Renzo Piano, who also designed iconic buildings such as the Center Pompidou in Paris, the Museum of Modern Art in Istanbul and the New York Times headquarters in New York.
Gustavo works at The Shard Monday to Friday from 5:30am to 2pm and then 5pm to 9pm. His main focus is cleaning offices and public areas.
However, the weekends are dedicated to art.
“On Saturdays and Sundays I lock myself up to paint,” he says.
image source, The shard
“Here in London it is very difficult to have a studio, so I put my paintings in the dining room, put on music and start painting non-stop.”
So he created “Christmas Lights,” an oil painting on canvas, which a group of engineers then turned into a five-minute show of animated lights that glow at the top of The Shard.
In addition to the exhibition inspired by Gustavo’s painting, the works of 11 other The Shard employees, selected through a competition, are also on display.
The 12 animations form an hour-long show that will be repeated every morning and evening until December 31st.
image source, The shard
“Persist and don’t give up”
Gustavo was inspired to paint the painting by the privileged view he has from his apartment.
“From my window you can see the whole building, you can see beautiful sunsets.”
So he painted the pointed tower full of bright and warm colors, in a style that he defines as “expressionist.”
And right from his window, he saw his oil painting transformed into lights for the first time.
image source, The shard
During a family gathering celebrating his wife’s birthday, Gustavo looked out the window and happened to see the lights in action during a test, days before the official opening of The Shard’s Christmas lights display.
“Until that moment, I didn’t realize the scale of the project,” he says.
“I didn’t believe I had done something that the whole world would now see, I was shocked.”
Nowadays, in addition to his intensive work, Gustavo takes the time to give interviews, take part in photo sessions, talk about his work in an exhibition that the building has prepared and, of course, continue painting.
And in the midst of his hectic days, he has time to think.
“This work is proof that things don’t happen by chance,” he says.
“You have to look for them hard, to be successful you have to persist and not give up.”
With additional reporting from Agustina Latourrette from the BBC Mundo video team.
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