Etafashion Just Painted a Mural in Cuenca's Historic Center — Here's the Story

A new mural just appeared in Cuenca's Centro Histórico — and it's worth a look the next time you're walking through.

Fashion retailer Etafashion commissioned local artist Javier Flores (who works under the name Dieztro) to paint a piece titled "Cuenca, Atenas de luz" — "Cuenca, Athens of light," a play on the city's long-running nickname La Atenas del Ecuador.

The central figure is a cholita cuencana, surrounded by what Flores describes as "referencias visuales a la Plaza de las Flores y la Catedral de la Inmaculada" — visual references to the Flower Plaza and the New Cathedral. In short: it's a love letter to the city, painted on the side of a building.

Why a Mural?

Etafashion opens its new store at Mall del Alto on May 21. Rather than just running an ad campaign for it, the company commissioned the public artwork as what its marketing lead Gabriel Juncal called a gift to the city: "Esta intervención artística busca crecer con la ciudad y respaldar el trabajo de artistas ecuatorianos. Hicimos este mural como un regalo porque siempre hemos tenido clientes muy fieles" — "This artistic intervention aims to grow with the city and support Ecuadorian artists' work. We did this mural as a gift because we've always had very loyal customers."

Take that as marketing-speak if you want, but the result is a real piece of public art in a neighborhood that mostly trades in colonial architecture and tourist murals from a decade ago.

What to Watch For

If you're walking the Centro Histórico this week, the mural's hard to miss — it's large-format, color-saturated, and the cholita is the visual anchor. It's the kind of piece that's going to age well or age badly depending on whether the wall stays clean — but for now, it's one of the more striking new additions to the city's public art inventory.

The Mall del Alto opening on May 21 is also worth noting if you've been watching the city's retail expansion north toward the airport. It's the second major mall to open in Cuenca's northern corridor in two years.

Source: El Mercurio