Fileteado Porteño: Illustration and Ornamentation of Posters

Alfredo Genovese -painter and teacher specialized in filleting Buenos Aires applied to packaging, advertising, bodypainting and tattoos- will show you what is the filleted Buenos Aires and how to make a poster from start to finish with this technique.

You will learn the history of filleting, its applications, draw its main iconographic elements and discover the rules that govern the design of this traditional painting technique with synthetic enamel and long hair brushes.

"If tango is a sad thought that is danced, fillet is a happy thought that is painted". (Ricardo Gómez, filleador).

The filleted is a pictorial and traditional art that was born in Buenos Aires in the late nineteenth century as an ornament to embellish cars, trucks and urban buses (called collectives) and that eventually became the iconographic emblem that best represents the city . The word fillet is derived from the Latin filum, meaning thread, and refers to a line that serves as ornamentation.

It is characterized by very stylized forms, the use of bright colors and an overload of their compositions. Within the works also include texts, which can be witty phrases, poetic sayings or names made with Gothic or cursive letters, always very ornamented.

The painter who decorated the cars was called filleting and did the work with long hair brushes or filleting brushes. The filleted with time happened to become a particular form of design that is applied in advertising, bodypainting and tattoos.

In December 2015 the filleted porteno was declared a World Heritage Site by Unesco.