Brazilian graffiti artist illustrates Madonna's new single

12/04/2012 - 11h50

Graffiti artist Simone Sapienza, 40, or Siss, as she signs her works, changed the walls for an album cover. Her Madonna-like Wonder Woman holding two spray cans will be the cover of the inset of the single "Superstar", which Madonna will release in Brazil now as a part of the Johnnie Walker's Keep Walking project in Brazil.

The only woman among the competition's finalists -- a public voting on Facebook chose 10 of the 30 proposals to be sent to Madonna --, she won with a feminist proposal.

"My work is connected to women's conditions," Siss told Folha. "I like strong women, who stand for what they believe is right."

The list of Siss's superstars includes Wonder Woman, whose costume was the basis for what Madonna wears on the cover of the album, and Marge Simpson, Bart's mother and Homer's wife on the TV cartoon.

Siss used the character's sentences on the cover of "Superstar": "The shorts say 'let's have dinner!'. The whip says: 'but you're paying!'" It's simple and right to point, as Siss likes it.

"Siss was very sensitive in capturing the song's idea and Madonna's pop world in her language," says Giovanni Bianco, Madonna's art director and collaborator, with whom she has been working for eight years. "She captured something from the streets and from Madonna. It was very clever."

The singer and the artist will meet today in São Paulo before her show in the city.

Translated by THOMAS MUELLO