Granville Art January 2, 2019

Check out this article from the Vancouver Courier about Granville art.

New murals are almost complete in the pedestrian tunnel connecting Vancouver’s Granville Look Park.

Unlike other murals around the city, those in the Granville Street tunnel will be repainted after a year.

Each artist brings a different vision

Irigoien’s mural is near the west entrance of the tunnel and has bright swirling colours to create the image of a person. He describes his mural as a representation of Hegel’s dialectic. “It has an upwards looking, transcendent, colourful figure whose self-consciousness explodes into his surrounding environment, only to re-enter his mind.”.

Brook pursued her interest in street art when an assignment in her microeconomics policy course challenged her to interact with the municipal government and public policy to initiate change.

The idea was for a drop-in public art space for any artist to express themselves.  Brook presented her idea to Vancouver’s Graffiti Management Program. The project developed over time into a street art gallery to feature a different group of artists each year.

Artist Faba Rodea, signs her work Cielito Lindo, moved to Canada three months ago and painted her first mural in the tunnel this year. Her piece is also near the western entrance, next to Irigoien’s mural.

Rodea says her mural as a symbol of continuous movement, with a large paper boat and a kite flying in the background. Transformation is represented with a butterfly known to migrate from Canada to Mexico annually.

Murals to change for 2020

The murals change in late 2019 and will expand the project to more locations and perhaps have a theme.

UBC student and artist Gorka Fraeters Irigoien has painted murals in the tunnel two years. Said the project brings life and colour to a grey city.

Brook selects the artists and lets them paint whatever they want on a 3×2 metre wall space. Out of the dozen artists commissioned for this year’s project, 10 have completed their murals so far.

Stephanie Brook, a third-year economics student at UBC, began the street art gallery project two years ago as a way to promote local artists and increase the visibility of street art in Vancouver.

I love the murals and how each artist uses the beauty of the area to inspire them. I bring the beauty of the area into each piece of art. You can see the beauty of the area.