Estepona Mural Competition: Seven Commissions and €10,000 Estepona town hall has opened a national mural competition with seven commissions at the Centro Cultural Padre Manuel and €10,000 in prize money. Entries close at 10am on 20 November. Estepona is looking for seven artists to leave their mark on one of its busiest public buildings. The town hall has launched a national competition to decorate interior spaces at the Centro Cultural Padre Manuel, and mural painters from across Spain have until 10am on Friday 20 November to submit their ideas. Seven murals are planned, and each one is tied to an activity that takes place inside the cultural centre. The themes are chess, dance, theatre, painting, literature, the library and music. Organisers want every winning design to reflect its subject clearly and to suit the specific space it has been created for. There is €10,000 in prize money on the table. The dance and music categories carry the largest prizes, at €1,650 each. Painting and the library theme offer €1,200 apiece, while chess, theatre and literature each come with a €900 award. The amounts are gross and must cover both the design and the execution of the mural, from the first sketch to the final brushstroke. The competition is open to visual artists, mural painters, art students and groups, as long as they are over 18. Applicants can submit designs for one category or several, although an individual artist or collective can only win a single prize. That rule is designed to spread the commissions across as many hands as possible. Entries will be judged by a jury that will weigh artistic quality, originality, suitability for the location, technical feasibility and how faithfully each design interprets its theme. Each submission needs a portfolio together with a separate dossier for every mural entered. The dossier must include a colour sketch, a photomontage showing the work in its intended location, a written statement explaining the concept, and details of the techniques and materials the artist plans to use. Applications must be registered with Estepona Town Hall before the deadline on Friday 20 November. The winning murals are then scheduled to be completed between 14 and 18 December, in time for the winter cultural programme. For a town that has turned outdoor art into a signature attraction, the competition is a natural next step. Estepona's mural route has grown into one of the largest open-air galleries in Spain, with giant artworks covering facades across the town and drawing visitors who come specifically to hunt them down. Local authorities have long argued that art is part of the town's identity, and the cultural centre project now brings that idea indoors. The Centro Cultural Padre Manuel hosts much of the town's workshop and association activity, from chess clubs and dance classes to theatre groups and reading circles. Painting its interior walls with themed murals would give each discipline a permanent visual home, and give regular users of the building something closer to a shared identity. For emerging artists, the competition also offers something rarer than prize money: a public commission in a town famous for its murals, on a wall that hundreds of people pass every week. Several of the painters behind Estepona's best-known facades have gone on to receive invitations for larger commissions in other cities. Practical details, theme descriptions and technical information about the seven spaces are available through the official Estepona Town Hall announcement. Artists preparing an entry should study the technical sheets for each space carefully, because the jury will penalise designs that ignore the physical limits of the wall they are intended for. With seven categories, seven prizes and a mid-November deadline, the competition gives both established muralists and art students a realistic shot at a commission. The winners will be painting in December, and visitors to the cultural centre will be able to watch the walls take shape. Estepona has bet on art for years, and the results are visible on street corners across the town. Now the bet moves inside, and seven artists will get the chance to prove that a cultural centre can be a canvas too.