Monday Mural

 I'm linking up at Monday Mural

October 2020 - Toronto ON

A few weeks ago I posted a mural on the side of a gas station, Petro Canada, dedicated to frontline workers.

At the time, Andrew mentioned it was odd to see such a commercial location. It turned out that Phade,Jessey Pacho, negotiated a contract with the station to highlight his artwork. I also discovered that he had another gas station mural.

His inspiration was "one specific time, during the recent (2019 NBA) playoffs, that everyone in the city - regardless of nation, creed, political views or background - was united and connected."

Back in the car (safer than public transit these days) we happened upon these in Regent Park Plaza.

Click on this link The Faces of Regent Park by Dan Bergeron to see the story of the art and the installation in the park.

Here's another article about the installation including the actual people whose faces were used. And a Toronto Life article.

This permanent public artwork was commissioned by the City of Toronto. The twelve photo-based, mixed-media portraits depict residents from the newly revitalized neighbourhood, which has been transformed from a strictly social housing only neighbourhood, to a mixed use development with an even split of social housing and market rate units. The six double-sided laminated glass panels are each nine feet high by six feet wide and two-and-a-half inches thick and weigh 2000 pounds.

Aesthetically the work combines the familiarity of the human face with the distressed surfaces of aged architecture and infrastructure found in the urban environment. The graffiti tags have been meticulously rendered from actual markings found in the neighbourhood and act as representational signifiers of human presence on our streets, while the patterned effects symbolize the energy of human movement that give our cities their kinetic life. The vibrant and contrasting colours found within the backgrounds create a juxtaposition that helps to frame the black and white portraits, while simultaneously presenting the notion that we all stem from the same colourful tree.

The twelve subjects were not easy to pick. As a cross section, they represent everyone who has, does or will live in Regent Park. Their faces are the welcome home to residents, the hello to local and international visitors to the neighbourhood, and the ever-present gatekeepers who will keep watch over Regent Park and remind us that it is through our differences that we gain strength and through our personal relationships that we create community.

The park also includes an aquatic centre, these murals are on a community garden building.

Monday Mural

 Linking up at Monday Mural

September 2020 - Toronto ON

Here's an interesting local story for mural lovers.

Art campaign launched after family gets hate mail for garage mural. 

In keeping with the mural tribute to the front line workers I found another on Danforth.

Jessey Pacho has been a professional graffiti artist since 2007, and has since incorporated other artistic elements like portraiture and landscape into his murals. He’s been working with Petro-Canada since 2018, and encouraged them to participate in this StreetARToronto project—they chose to reimagine the side of a gas station near Danforth and Woodbine. Jessey wanted to stick to his roots of graffiti, honouring front-line workers while also paying tribute to the form of artwork that he says has paved the way for much of the public pieces now popping up in the city. He came up with an extensive list of front-line and essential workers, and created a design involving layered lettering, with worker titles sitting on top. Services and personnel from four societal pillars—health care, transport, community service and the arts—are repeated across the mural (the repetition shows how there’s strength in numbers). With a closer look, you can spot jobs like long-term care workers, bank workers, teachers, garbage collectors and transit drivers.

Monday Mural

I'm linking up at Monday Mural


June 2020 - Toronto ON

I am posting this early due to the relevancy.

Graffiti Alley has been transformed by Toronto artists supporting the Black Lives Matter movement.

In an initiative called "Paint the City Black," over 40 artists from the GTA and Montreal converged in Graffiti Alley on Saturday to cover the area well known for its murals with images supporting Black Lives Matter.

Subjects of the murals include a panther curled around a globe with the Civil Rights slogan "All Power to the People," as well as Regis Korchinski-Paquet, George Floyd, Martin Luther King Jr. and Breonna Taylor.

"Communities thrive when people come together," said Jessey Pacho, a Toronto graffiti artist who organized the "call to artists" on Saturday.

 

Korchinski-Paquet's death falling from a balcony in Toronto's High Park neighbourhood while she was alone with police is under investigation, and Floyd died after an officer kneeled on his neck for nearly nine minutes in Minneapolis.

'Jamal Francique.'

Another mural contains the names of Ahmaud Arbery, an unarmed Black man who was fatally shot while jogging in Georgia, and Douglas Lewis, an unarmed Black man who was shot by a white man during a traffic altercation in St. Paul.

Breonna Taylor

Construction workers had moved the board to get into the job site.

Uber5000's mural has been modified.