Archives: Murals
Consistent with 836M’s 2023 thematic programming, this mural delves into how San Francisco’s history has shaped its present identity. Focusing on the neighborhood that 836M calls its home, Jackson Square, once known invitingly as San Francisco’s ‘Barbary Coast,’ Farr explores Jackson Square’s relationship to the gold rush and the brick architecture that survived the 1906 earthquake. Her mural incorporates colors inspired by these elements.
Kristin Farr’s work is directed by color, synesthesia, and magic. Farr draws inspiration from her family legacy with Pennsylvania’s “hex signs” and other folk art practices. These practices are said to bring good luck and protection to their surroundings. Her multidisciplinary approach embraces the synesthetic experience with a primary focus on color’s ability to achieve this effect. Kristin Farr was a lead curator for Facebook’s Artist in Residence (AIR) program and is currently KQED’s Arts Education Manager. She created the Emmy Award-winning video series “Art School,” which brought audiences directly into artists’ studios to learn about contemporary art. She is also a contributing editor for Juxtapoz Magazine and has been a contributor to the New York Times
Ellen approaches her art with a scientific narrative through observation and appreciation of the world we live on and the universe we live in. After graduating from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Ellen returned to the Bay Area to work in the Natural History Museum exhibit industry as a muralist, illustrator, model maker, and exhibit preparator. While also pursuing a fine art career, her work has won awards, is in museums/private collections and she is active in the arts community where she lives.
Christopher Burch is an artist, events organizer, and educator based in San Francisco and Louis. He received the Painting Fellowship for his graduate studies at the San Francisco Art Institute (MFA 2008) and graduated from Columbia College with a BFA in 2002. Burch’s works report from re-invention, mythology, folklore, and history intersections. Depicting, bodies, acts, objects, and ideas within a process of co-emergence, slippage, and simultaneity. Burch’s aesthetic, fully realized as a surreal personal language, utilizes the grotesque, the abject, and the ironic as accomplices within his form of storytelling. Burch’s works find their greatest strength in his eloquent, thoughtful manner of interpreting and investigating some of humanity’s most disquieting realities.
Kalani Ware is a contemporary visual artist from Oakland, CA, with roots in Hawai’i. He creates, experiments, and explores his creativity in color. He strives to create works that will inspire others. The variation of colors, shapes, and textures he uses not only represents the diverse and multicultural society we live in but our connection to society and each other. His current body of work focuses on these same ideas, sometimes incorporating people. What he loves most about abstract art is that it is subjective. Kalani hopes that people can engage, ask questions and find happiness in his work. Everything begins as a thought for him, and then it becomes a visual sketch in his mind. Kalani’s creative process is very organic and natural; he creates, revises, then reflects. Although primarily focused on abstract works, most of Kalani’s work over the years has been widely diverse, showing his creative range from painting nature landscapes to human figures.
“I enjoy my abstract works; however, it’s very important to me to change my focus and create outside of my comfort zone sometimes, exploring and experimenting in various styles. This gives me an advantage, constantly challenging myself.”
Rachel Wolfe-Goldsmith is a fine artist and muralist based out of Oakland, California. She is the Creative Director for The Bay Area Mural Program (BAMP), where she designs and facilitates the installation of large-scale public artworks. Rachel’s background as a bi-racial, Jewish, adopted womxn gives her a broad understanding of many different walks of life. Her work centers around celebrating culture, ancestry, and human potential. She recently completed large-scale murals as “Wolfe Pack’’ at the historic Oakland Tribune and Youth Radio, both in downtown Oakland. She has been Creative Director for BAMP projects at Rosa Parks Senior Center in San Francisco, collaborating with Give Power Foundation at the Standing Rock Indian Reservation and Lodestar School in East Oakland. Rachel was awarded the 2020 Neighborhood Empowerment Network Award from San Francisco Mayor London Breed for best Community Challenge Grant for designing the “Spirit of the Fillmore” mural. She did the artwork for Grammy-winning blues musician and Fantastic Negrito‘s album “Have You Lost Your Mind Yet,” reaching number one on Billboard for Best Blues Album August 2020. In 2015 she won second place on RuPaul‘s skin wars body painting challenge. In 2012 she was hosted as a performance painter working alongside Alex Grey at Envision Festival.
Paz de la Calzada, a native of Spain, is a multidisciplinary artist residing in the Bay Area. She creates large site-specific drawings and temporary installations that engage in a dialogue with the surrounding urban spaces. Her art fosters an honest and direct interaction with the public. The intricate lines and repetitive patterns that characterize her work exist alongside and play off the surrounding architecture, instilling a playful sense of wonder in the viewer.
In her current projects, Paz combines site-specific drawings with traditional western herbalism. They explore the relationship between nature and the urban landscape and serve to unveil the rituals of everyday life.
She incorporates into her drawings herbs collected from specific places—native, invasive, and naturalized plants—which she uses to create herbal remedies and dyes.
Paz came to the Bay Area in 2003 as an Artist in Residence at the Djerassi Resident Artist Program. Since then, she has participated in several residency programs: the Millay Colony for the Arts in New York, ArtAmari in Crete, and Tvak Studio in India. She currently maintains a studio in the Mission District in San Francisco.
Last One’s Collective is a young Oakland-based mural team, established in 2018, inspired and highly motivated to make authentic art. They will be the last ones you need for any creative project, from corporate offices to private homes.
With a vast repertoire of visual art projects and extensive combined experience, the collective artists have a clear advantage in interpreting and bringing their vision to fruition. Specializing in interior and exterior murals, in both corporate and public settings, Last One’s Collective is efficient in executing their artwork, always creating impactful results.
Their purpose is to elevate the artistic culture through their work as a collective, creating a platform to give back to future artists from similar lifestyles in a way that has never been done before. They have created a platform through murals, tattooing, digital illustrations, and design. Drawing inspiration from each other and the varying styles as a creative group with an extensive background in street art, Last One’s Collective works together seamlessly in a collaborative, team-oriented style.
Last One’s Collective has a worldwide presence, and together the featured artists have over 20 years of professional experience in their craft and are now harvesting their potential through collaboration. As full-time artists with street art and graffiti backgrounds, Last One’s Collective is committed to growing the art community and inspiring the youth.
“Our purpose is to elevate the culture through our art as a collective, creating a platform to give back to future artists from similar lifestyles, in a way that has never been done before. ”
— LAST ONES COLLECTIVE
Living in the heart of Oakland, Monica spends her days stitching, painting, printing, and building, and breathing life into the refuse that dominates her surroundings. Moving across different media, sometimes with friends and sometimes alone, Monica creates a delicate visual record of her personal and communal space. She received a BFA from the California College of Arts and Crafts. Her work has been shown both internationally and nationally: at The Luggage Store Gallery (San Francisco), Inner State Gallery (Michigan), Chandran Gallery (SF), Black Rat Press (London), Subliminal Projects (LA), and at KRETS (Sweden).
She has also done large-scale public art installations at Miami Art Basel. Her work has been displayed in
community spaces and abandoned places worldwide. She currently has exhibited at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History and New Image Art. Monica and Xara Thustra painted the entryway to the Great Hall at Oakland Museum in March 2019.
“Creating art is a way to generate a personal and living history. ”
— MONICA CANILAO
My community and collaborators, my descendants and their all but lost traditions, as well as my neighborhood and its trash piles, are all integral to my life and art.
My pieces incorporate my worldview and the beauty found in what people have left behind over time and its subsequent decay. I rely as much on the loving and careful meticulousness employed in making handicrafts as on high art techniques. Taking something as ordinary as wood pulp or cloth and passing thread through it can result in an object that is beautiful and useful.
Cameron Moberg is a San Francisco-based, self-taught artist heavily involved in the community. He teaches classes and also helps curate gallery shows and art festivals. He has painted numerous murals for businesses and government programs throughout the city. His work reflects on life and nature; his outlook is positive and spiritual. He believes that by focusing on themes of love and hope in his murals, he can help people make better decisions and persevere through hardship.
Shawn Bullen is a talented muralist who has brightened up the streets of San Francisco from 2013-2017. A Chicago native, Bullen refined his techniques at Columbia College, Chicago before transferring to NSCAD in Halifax, Canada, where he worked with the Halifax Government Mural Program and began doing professional mural work. Bullen formed his own organization, IDC Art House, with his friend Chris Gary, pursuing the goal of contributing and bettering communities through art. Bullen is responsible for the well-known mural on Mother Brown’s Kitchen as well as a number of murals throughout the city.