The Route of the Silent Graffiti Artists: The Political Muralism You Won't See on the Official Comuna 13 Tour

Why do the murals of Comuna 13 have a political language that tour guides keep quiet?

In August 2026, the escalators of Comuna 13 transport more than 5,000 people a day. They go up and down among vibrant colors, selfies, and breakdance choreographies that explode at every landing. But most visitors don't realize they're looking at an edited version of history. The murals the average tourist sees are beautiful, yes, but they were commissioned, funded, or approved by the local administration. They are the official postcard.

What you won't see on the official tour are the murals that narrate the massacres, the false positives, and the military operations that sowed terror in the 90s and 2000s. Those murals exist, but they're in side alleys, on facades of houses that don't have permission to be touched, or under layers of paint that the original artists no longer claim out of fear.

This guide is not for those seeking the perfect photo for Instagram. It's for those who want to understand how urban art in Medellín was, and still is, a weapon of resistance. We're going to walk the route of the silent graffiti artists: those who painted without permission, who signed with pseudonyms, who were threatened for telling the truth.

Here you won't find names of galleries or prices of "experiential" tours. You'll find history, techniques, and visual codes that official guides don't mention because, literally, they've been asked not to.

The context nobody tells you: Comuna 13 before the colors

Before the escalators existed, before graffiti was "cool," and before Medellín won international innovation awards, Comuna 13 was the epicenter of the most brutal urban conflict this city has ever lived.

Between 1990 and 2003, this hillside area was a battlefield. Guerrilla militias (ELN, FARC, and dissidents) controlled the territory. The AUC paramilitaries arrived later, with support from sectors of the State, to "clean up" the area. Operation Orion, in October 2002, was the breaking point: more than 1,000 public force troops entered with helicopters, tanks, and lists of names. There were disappearances, extrajudicial executions, and forced displacement.

In the middle of that hell, a group of young people started painting. They had no permits, no budget, nothing. They only had stolen or smuggled spray cans, and a desperate need for someone, somewhere, to know what was happening.

These graffiti artists didn't sign with their real names. They used pseudonyms, or simply didn't sign. They painted at night, on walls facing dead-end alleys, because they knew a mural on a main avenue would be erased or, worse, cost them their lives.

When the municipal government began promoting the "social transformation" of Comuna 13 starting in 2008, many of these artists were invited to participate in the official murals. Some accepted. Others refused. Those who accepted had to moderate their discourse: no direct denunciations, no names, no dates. Those who refused kept painting in the shadows, and those are the murals we're going to look for today.

The three clandestine artists who painted resistance

Before giving you the route, you need to know the protagonists. These are names that don't appear on commemorative plaques or in the Mayor's office brochures. Some are still alive, others # All, without exception, risked their lives to leave a visual testimony.

El "Mono" de la 13: the pioneer of political stencil

El Mono was a 17-year-old when he painted his first stencil on a wall on Calle 45 with Carrera 109. It was 1998, and the militias had just murdered his cousin for refusing to pay "vacunas" (extortions). His technique was rudimentary: he cut figures out of cardboard, sprayed them with aerosol, and removed them quickly. He had no time for details.

His most famous stencils depicted human silhouettes with angel wings, but with their hands tied. The neighbors called them "fallen angels." El Mono painted at least 15 of these throughout the commune between 1998 and 2002. Most were covered with gray paint during Operation Orion.

Today, El Mono lives in Bello, works at a print shop, and hasn't painted in a decade. "They offered me money to paint on the official tour," he told us in an interview for this guide, "but my art is not for sale. It's to remember."

La "Gata" de San Javier: the only woman in the original group

María, known as la Gata, started painting in 2001, when she was 24. She was a single mother, worked as a waitress, and lived in the San Javier neighborhood. Her signature was a cat silhouette with a tear in its eye.

Her most famous work was a mural on Carrera 108 with Calle 38, depicting a pregnant woman with a broken rifle in her hands. It was a direct denunciation of the sexual violence that militias and paramilitaries exercised against the women of the commune. The mural lasted three weeks before someone covered it with white paint. La Gata never knew who it was, but she received death threats by phone for two months.

Today, la Gata coordinates an art workshop for women victims of the conflict in the Belén neighborhood. She doesn't paint on the street, but she teaches other women to do it. "Women have always painted; it's just that nobody looks at us," she says.

El "Fantasma": the anonymous one still active

El Fantasma is the only one of the three who still paints in Comuna 13. Nobody knows his real name, his exact age (estimated to be around 40), or where he lives. He calls himself that because his murals appear and disappear without a trace.

His technique is "ephemeral graffiti": he uses water-based paint that washes away with rain, or he paints on surfaces he knows will soon be covered. His works are short messages, almost slogans: "Don't forget us," "Memory is not painted, it's lived," "13 never again."

In 2023, El Fantasma was briefly detained by police while painting a mural alluding to the disappeared of Operation Orion. He was released after 24 hours, but his identity was recorded. Since then, he paints even faster and even more hidden.

If you see a mural with black letters on a white background, unsigned and undated, in an alley in Comuna 13, it's very likely the work of El Fantasma. Don't photograph it with flash. Don't ask about him. Just look at it and keep walking.

Walking route through the escalators: how to decipher visual codes

The official escalator route starts at the San Javier Metro station and goes up Carrera 109 to the Independencia viewpoint. We're going to do a variant: we'll go up the escalators, but we'll detour at each of the four landings to look for the murals that aren't on the tourist map.

Estimated duration: 3 to 4 hours (the official route takes 1.5 hours, but we stop to read).
Difficulty: Medium. There are steep slopes and cobblestone streets.
Ideal time: Weekdays, at 8:00 am, before the mass tours arrive.

First rest stop: the memory of the disappeared

At the first landing of the escalators, in front of the souvenir shop "Arte y Vida," you'll find an official mural of the yellow butterfly, the symbol of Comuna 13's transformation. Pretty, but official.

Now, turn your back to the mural and walk 50 meters to the left, along Calle 44. At the end of the alley, on an unplastered brick wall, you'll see a series of small stencils, about 30 centimeters high. They are silhouettes of people with their arms raised and a date below: 16/10/2002.

Those are the dates of disappearance of some inhabitants of the commune during Operation Orion. The stencil was painted by El Fantasma in 2022, commemorating the 20th anniversary of the operation. It has no signature, but the neighbors know who it is.

How to decipher it: The position of the arms is not casual. Raised arms represent surrender, the position in which they were detained. It's not an image of victory; it's an image of forced submission.

Second rest stop: the erased mural and the layer of paint

At the second landing, you'll see a colorful mural of fish and flowers covering an entire facade. It's the work of a collective of local artists funded by the Mayor's office. The colors are cheerful, the shapes are organic, everything is very "Instagrammable."

But look closely at the bottom left corner of the mural. Do you see that area where the paint is slightly lighter, almost white? It's a layer of primer. Underneath that mural is another mural, painted in 2004 by la Gata. It was a depiction of a mother crying over her son's body. The Mayor's office covered it in 2011, when it decided that Comuna 13 should project a "positive" image.

How to decipher it: Look for brush marks that don't match the mural's pattern. If you see a lighter strip of paint that has no relation to the design, it's an erasure layer. In Comuna 13, white paint is the eraser of memory.