Lucha Libre, Mexico’s form of professional wrestling, is characterized by rapid sequences of holds and maneuvers, as well as Luchadores with names like El Hijo Del Santo (The Saint’s Son), Blue Devil Jr, Señor Jalapeno, and El Pepino Grande (The Big Pickle) just to name a few, but the trademark of the sport are the Luchadores’ masks. They are colorfully designed to evoke the images of animals, gods, ancient heroes, and other archetypes, whose identity the luchador takes on during a performance.
Stencil artist stenSOUL mailed out luchador masks made of wood to different artists and asked them to paint in their style the background of the mask. Once done, stenSOUL stenciled-in the details of the face into the wood to finish them up. The results, are masks that like those of the wrestlers themselves, resemble the identity and archetype of each of the artists.
We’ve provided some of the highlights below, but check out stenSoul’s flickr feed of Collabomask for some more goodies.
Above by John Casey.
