Murals

Humans have been painting on walls for millennia

They used mud, sticks with hairs and their hands. Many ancient murals have survived in Egyptian tombs (around 3150 BC), Minoan palaces (1700–1600 BC) and in Pompeii (around 100 BC – AD 79). Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel ceiling using wood scaffolding and pigments mixed into damp plaster. It took 4 years to complete during the 15th century.

Making a leap to the 20th century, World War II produced, “Kilroy Was Here.” This character, appearing mostly in graffiti form, was associated with American GI’s.

The spectrum of graffiti, murals street art, etc. is wide. It reads a lot like music, echoing the ambitious people’s voice of its time. In NYC it began as writing street names. It is an art movement that gained recognition in the late 60’s and early 70’s, in the same vein as Realism, Impressionism, Modernism or Abstract Expressionism.

Today, muralists and street artists, now defined as fine artists, are producing beautiful, complex, sometimes humungous paintings on freight containers, walls of businesses and city buildings and at paint festivals. They use cherry pickers, metal scaffolding, paint markers, paint rollers, spray cans, house paint, stencils, occasionally projectors, their artistic technical abilities and imagination to enliven human environments around the world. They can be political, allegorical, expressionistic…it’s outdoor art, it’s large-scale art, which sometimes is temporary to be covered and repainted into another mural.

There are many lines/brands of paint in aerosol and paint marker form. Krylon and RustOleum were the first brands to be used. Now there are brands from Europe – namely Montana 94 (Spain), Montana (Germany), Molotow to name a few. These were specifically formulated for urban art, fast-drying, low-pressure and high-pressure cans with a vast array of colors and caps. The world is literally at the fingertips.

We have had the privilege to have renowned local artists, Jaime Molina, Leo Rivera, Pedro Barrios, Caleb Hahne, Gamma Acosta, Molly Bounds and Mando Marie paint the walls at our south parking lot. We come to work everyday and are inspired by their work.