MURAL FESTIVAL
The walls are alive with cosy, cool images
When: Aug. 7-12 Where: Mount Pleasant Tickets: Free, vanmuralfest.ca
If you happen to find yourself out for a stroll through Mount Pleasant with David Vertesi, don’t be offended if he seems a bit distracted — he’s busy looking at walls.
Vertesi is executive director of the Vancouver Mural Festival and he’s always on the lookout for fresh facades.
“My wife notices that,” said Vertesi about his quest for concrete canvases. “I wasn’t like that before. I’m new to all this. It has become my obsession.”
This is the festival’s second year. Last year, 53 murals were painted in and around the Mount Pleasant area.
This year’s festival will see 60 new murals created between Aug. 7-12. While artists are busy doing their thing, festival organizers will host evening events and will close with a big street party at Broadway and Main on Aug. 12.
“I wanted to grow awareness about how amazing the Vancouver art and culture scene is,” said Vertesi, who co-founded the festival with Gabriel Hall. “There is this idea floating around Vancouver about ‘no fun city’ and it’s pretty self-defeating and a self-fulfilling prophecy. It’s held by artists and non-artists alike.”
So, what better way to announce the vibrant art scene than huge exterior walls covered with crazy, cool images?
“The mural format is really exciting to us. It’s a project with a legacy,” said Vertesi, whose other job is bass player in the band Hey Ocean.
The legacy isn’t just some pretty pictures sprucing up a grungy alley, but a bigger idea where art not only improves social well-being but also offers residents a pride of place.
“What we are hoping to do is create a visual aid for the city for the developers to see that this is cultural space and you have to treat it that way and approach it differently. And, we are already seeing incredible strides,” said Vertesi.
There is no mandate to speak of when it comes to what artists can paint. The artists are chosen through submissions. Diversity is on display, but Vertesi says that doesn’t mean another mural of people of all different cultures holding hands, but diversity in the artists and the artists being allowed to paint what they want.
“We really believe in our core — the strength of the Vancouver art scene is in the wealth of different stories artists are telling,” said Vertesi.
One of those stories this year will be from first-time mural artist Sandeep Johal.
“I think there is such a healing power when it comes to having accessible art around for everyone to enjoy,” said Johal.
The mother of a two-year-old boy, Johal quit her full-time job last year to focus on her art. She will have her first solo show at the Gam Gallery opening Sept. 8.
“I am really excited. When I found out about Van Mural Fest last year, I kind of went crazy. I was so excited. I went to Argentina in 2011 for my honeymoon and there was street art everywhere. There were buildings wrapped in art. It was just incredible,” said Johal, who went on a graffiti tour when she was on that trip. “When I came back to Vancouver, I was looking around at all these blank walls and I was kind of depressed about it, so then when I found out about the Vancouver Mural Festival, I was ‘Yes, finally.’ I was late to the game last year. They had already picked all their artists, so I was determined to apply this year.”
Johal’s work will be on display in the alley behind the Chutney Villa restaurant at Broadway between Main and Quebec streets.
Her plan is to combine her two signature styles of bold patterning and detailed drawing on the 5.5-by-20-metre wall.
“I’ve been doing some Indian folk art drawing, so I have this image I am really drawn to. It’s a woman on a tiger. It references the goddess Durga, who is a protector and a warrior. It also references a novel, Priya’s Shakti, about a woman who was a sexual assault survivor. She rides a tiger and goes around India saving women.”
Also joining Johal as a first-time festival artist is Kelowna’s Tyler Keeton Robbins.
Robbins will be replicating a painting of his in the alley behind Nuba Restaurant at 3rd and Main.
The big difference, and obvious challenge, is that the original painting, Trees Burn While Flowers Bloom, is 183 centimetres by 122 centimetres, and the new version of the graphic black-andwhite piece is going to be four or so metres high and a whopping 30 metres long.
“There’s a level of anxiety, sure,” said Robbins, who has built special large brushes for the work.
“I’m half excited and half nervous. I think it is healthy to be a bit nervous about something. It gives you this energy, and if you can funnel it and use it the right way, it can help you.”
Out of the mural artists this year, a handful come from overseas. According to Vertesi, artists far afield have already heard of the young festival and want to be involved. This year’s roll call includes artists from Russia, Italy, Mexico, the U.K. and Spain.
“These are top-tier artists that have done incredible work,” said Vertesi. “It’s exciting to show off our art scene to them.”
While Johal and Robbins are both professional painters, the festival has cast a wider creative net when it comes to the artists chosen to create images.
“Vancouver has the most artists per capita in Canada. But, a lot of them are professional designers, animators. That’s how they make their living, but they don’t get their chance to make their own art anymore because they have work. We are trying to tap into that,” said Vertesi. “I have travelled all over the world looking at murals and I think there is something a bit different here. I think it’s because people are coming from a variety of different artistic backgrounds.”
With one successful year in the books and all those wonderful murals inhabiting city walls, does Vertesi have a favourite?
“The problem for me is they are all my children. Every mural has a different story,” said Vertesi, who, when pushed, points to the work The Present is the Gift by Drew Young and Jay Senetchko at Main and Broadway.
He likes the dual image because it livens up a dead space and it does so with a strong reference to the neighbourhood, with paintings of actual area residents — a young woman named Paisley, who is of Squamish descent, and Bob, who is an optometrist.
“It is a really awesome reminder to appreciate what you have and to see the kind of people and diversity of people who call Mount Pleasant home,” said Vertesi. “That piece means a lot to me.”
The artists are all paid for this venture. Vertesi says it ranges from “1,000 to much more than that,” and depends on the size of the wall and the artist’s experience.
The festival is partly funded by a $100,000 grant from the city’s Public Art Boost fund. The whole budget is almost $750,000 and is made up of funds from a combination of corporate sponsorship and auxiliary projects throughout the year.
Vertesi helped fund the first festival with money he inherited from his grandfather’s estate.
Would his grandfather be happy about how his grandson used the money?
“Yeah, he’d be happy,” said Vertesi. “I think he would have been stoked that I invested it in something for my career and my passion.”