In 2022, the German artist CASE of the Maclaim crew returned to the METROPOLINK festival for urban art in Heidelberg to show everyone how it’s done when painting hands and hand-related images. CASE’s mural is a large-scale haunting mural made up of 7 individual images to form 1. Taking his love of hands, fingers, and hand gestures to new heights, this time CASE’s composition takes a look at the confronting knife game. With its new home at the METROPOLINK h.q at the former U.S military barracks, the Patrick-Henry Village, the first six images show different phases of a hand with a knife tip frantically passing between each set of fingers. The final layer of the image is a photo-realistically painted rendition of the same hand, with its owner appearing to be in the starting or finishing position of the game. 

The Knife Game

The viewer is left to come to their own conclusions after they manage to turn off their internal magnifying glass and stop peering at all the little enthralling technical details. Trying to find where the use of the Montana BLACK and GOLD cans end and the acrylic roller and brush work start is equally as impressive. A seemingly effortless merge of the old with the new.

Playing the knife game

Enthralling technical details

The METROPOLINK festival supported by Montana Cans which hosts a wide range of contemporary street art and mural creation also plays host to a wide range of musical, theatrical, and site-specific happenings which add value to the city’s cultural portfolio while supporting the development of urban art locally and beyond.

Photography by DNA Collective & Alexander Krziwanie / MontanaCans