Some mural support

City wants biggest painting in the country

Sudbury, Ont., may not have the population or worldwide reputation that Vancouver or Montreal does, but the street art is second to none.

St. Joseph’s Hospital, closed since 2010 in a plan for condos, is being covered with a 24,385-square-metre painting. It’ll be the largest mural in Canada, dwarfing a photorealistic wolf in Thompson, Man., which holds the current title at 6,095 square metres.

Sponsors are donating paint and helping cover the $10,000 fee for Los Angeles artist RISK, real name Kelly Graval, organizer Christian Pelletier said.

No word on what the new mural will be, but Sudbury is already home to dozens of painted buildings that have transformed the city’s look.

“You’ve got tons of cities across North America like Toronto, Vancouver, San Francisco that have really great urban art, but it’s spread out,” Pelletier said. “Downtown Sudbury is really constrained, but what works to our advantage is we’re able to create really nice density with some of the best talent in the country, and now international artists.”

People have been painting walls since bison and handprints decorated stone age caves. Modern artists have turned to murals as a way to break out of galleries and put their work directly into public spaces. Sometimes their efforts are employed to cover or pre-empt graffiti, or like in Sudbury’s case, to wrap an eyesore in bold colours that champion optimism over decay.

Likewise the Vancouver Mural Festival has been running annually since 2016 as a celebration where artists paint the city walls with spectators watching. Montreal’s Mural Festival has been drawing artists since 2013; among the recent additions is a giant portrait of late singer Leonard Cohen, who called the city home at various times in his life.

“I love the fact that I’m painting total coverage, and I get to paint the windows,” Graval told Sudbury.com. “Stuff like that is really cool. Usually we spend so much time just taping off windows and stuff like this.”

It’s expected Graval and his team of six will need two weeks to complete the Sudbury mural, which they plan to start this week. It’ll be part of the Up Here music and art festival that’s drawing headlining performances by Canadian artists Milk & Bone and Snotty Nose Rez Kids.

Pelletier says the town has come a long was since being a former geological training site for astronauts.

“Sudbury isn’t just known as that place that used to look like the moon. It’s a cultural capital.”