The inspiration behind Renaissance Island’s Mangrove beach bar

In October 2015,  Papagayo Bar located on the Renaissance Island burnt down completely leaving a great emptiness behind. The Renaissance team came up with the idea of a temporary ‘pop-up’ bar. The creative squad behind ‘Korteweg’ was in charge in creating this bar made out of recycled wooden pallets. 

Now that Papagayo Bar is in its final phase of remodeling, Renaissance has decided to move and install the pop-up bar at Flamingo Beach. The Renaissance team contacted local artist Romelinda ‘Kala’ Maldonado to design and paint this bar for Flamingo Beach. Kala, a young local craftswoman with a passion for painting, photography and local handmade souvenirs, such as wall decorations and jewelry- by using only recycled materials which she finds either at the beach or into the wild. Kala is well known for her pieces using raw materials and allowing the beauty of her creations speaks for themselves. 

‘Aruba, Artistic and Authentic’ were the three main inspirations for this beach bar. Renaissance wanted a tropical look just to match the perfect scenery of Flamingo Beach without the use of bright bold colors but with a ‘washed-up’ look. The visitor must still see all the original details of the wooden pallets. After that Kala saw the bar, the location and keeping in mind the wishes of Renaissance, she put her creative mind and soul into work- the result, a perfect piece of art for Flamingo Beach. Now, it’s called Mangrove! 

The bar was painted in colors such as flamingo pink, different shades of blue, green, beige and brown is for sure now a meeting spot to all who visit Flamingo Beach. To give the bar an ‘Aruban’ touch, Kala painted some symbols which you can appreciate on old ‘cunucu’ houses across the island, but in a more modern tropical way. The now, Mangrove bar would not be complete without Kala’s signature symbols like stripes and squares, which you can also relate to old Indian paintings on Aruba. To give it a final touch, Kala used different techniques like the use of exterior latex paint and also a washed-up finish to give it a beach-look. 

According to Zugheila Lindeborg of Renaissance Aruba, “The work of Kala is really awesome and inspirational”. A complete handmade paintjob, that took almost 3 weeks to complete. Renaissance Island’s Flamingo Beach has now an authentic Aruba inspired beach bar and made by our own Aruban local artist.