Youri Cansell, known as Mantra was born in Metz, France in 1987. He is a self-taught street artist who has been painting the streets since 2008. Today Mantra lives in Mexico and Switzerland.

Growing up, Mantra, wanted to be a naturalist. Now, he makes larger-than-life murals of his favorite objects of study – butterflies.


“I spent a lot of time in my family’s garden as a child. I’m sensitive to all the small living things I found there, like birds, insects and spiders,” Mantra says. “Butterflies feed my curiosity and they built my childhood dreams”.

As a child he collected boxes, in which he gathered all the insects he found in his garden to discover, study and draw them. These boxes from his childhood have found their way into the French artist’s huge, realistic murals. We see gorgeous, detailed butterflies inside picture frames as if they’re archived away.

“I became a painter who dreamed of being a naturalist”, he says. Actually, the two careers have lots in common, in both you need a great eye for detail, almost endless patience and a willingness to immerse yourself in a single task for hours on end. “After years of painting I found my own balance. I realised that I’m finally close to the definition of a mantra – repeating my proper mantra in painting, always with more concentration and assiduity”.

Mantra has extraordinary artistic skills, freehand sketching without using a projector or grid, but he also has a strong passion and motivation in his work.

Mantra’s works are recognised beyond the European border, for instance in Buenos Aires, Seattle, Lima, Quito, Bogotá, and other cities.