For 2015’s Monument Art Festival, a dozen international artists painted murals around the South Bronx and East Harlem.
This mural, Freedom and Emancipation of the Natural World, by SEGO was painted on the wall of P.S. 171 Patrick Henry, East Harlem, near Museum of the City of New York and El Museo del Barrio.
Brightmares was created by Alex Pardee (@alexpardee) for the 2016 SHINE Mural Festival in St. Pete, Florida.
From the St. Pete Arts Alliance website about the work-
The mural is called Brightmare, 46 feet wide and 19 feet tall. An emaciated, purple, naked figure is bowed down under a huge, sagging rainbow-colored ball where her head should be. She’s bony and hunched over, with purple skin and long grey skeletal hands, pendulous breasts and a swollen belly. The figure is on tiptoe, knees bent, one hand on the muddy floor for balance.
The sagging striped ball covers her head and neck and droops toward her belly – a red dot like a bullseye in the center of the ball, is ringed with pink, blue, green, yellow and orange. It’s like a rainbow balloon that’s leaking air, and jammed onto the figure’s head. Colors drip from the ball, and purple splashes from her body, as if the entire mural is melting in the heat.
The figure is stooped in front of a gaping black hole painted on the wall, like the opening of a cave. At her feet, bulbous blobs of white, tan and brown are spurting mud and water into the air.
On the lower left corner, the muddy blobs touch a green metal door in the side of the building. The outline of the cave crosses vertical pipes and electrical connections bolted to the wall. Two dark metal exhaust ducts frame the figure’s heavy rainbow head.
The background of the mural is the same stark industrial tan of the rest of the building, a massive structure that takes up almost an entire block.
Alex Pardee is a multi-media designer and illustrator who’s brought his unique aesthetic to music, film, animation, clothing and comics. When he painted this for the 2016 SHINE Festival, it was the largest mural he’d ever attempted. Ricky Watts, another artist on our tour, flew in from San Francisco to help with the mural’s completion. The mural is painted in aerosol, but the gaping black hole is brush painted.
To your right, in the alley facing this mural, a small window with heavy metal bars reflects the mural’s rainbow colors.
Mundo Loco by Erin Ko spotted in NYC in 2020. For more of her work also check out her Instagram.
The mural has recently been chosen by MakersPlace to be part of Equal Bytes, a new artist accelerator program that aims to “recruit and onboard additional women creators to the NFT space and support the minting and sale of their first NFT”.
Until 11/20/22 you can vote for your favorite artwork on their site and be automatically entered to win one of six NFTs selected by MakersPlace from the exhibition. All of the pieces included are by first-time women NFT creators. The ten artists who receive the most votes will be invited to participate in their Featured Creators Program.
Feelings by Reda3sb (aka Ricardo Delgado) was created for the 2019 iteration of SHINE Mural Festival in St. Pete, Florida.
The St. Pete Arts Alliance website has more information on the artist and this work. Also check out his Facebook page for additional updates.
Dorothy Day, born today, November 8th, was an American journalist and social activist who co-founded the Catholic Worker Movement in the early 1930s. This portrait is located in the First Street Community Garden.
On November 4th, 2022, the newest vessel in the Staten Island Ferry fleet was named for her, and will enter service in the coming weeks. Day lived on Staten Island for several decades.
Interestingly the quote in the portrait above that reads “All of our problems stem from our acceptance of this filthy, rotten system”, although probably her most famous, may never have been said by her. For more on that debate, this article is pretty informative.
Mear One’s Gaia Basking in the Sunshine of Love, located off Melrose in Los Angeles. For more of Mear One’s work, also check out his Instagram.
Little Día de los Muertos mural in Dunedin, Florida, by Anna Hamilton Fields.
