Wes Wong and the Phoenix Hotel

 Posted by on December 31, 2012
Dec 312012
 

601 Eddy
The Tenderloin

This long series is part of the San Francisco StreetSmARTS program.  The artist is Wes Wong, he is part of the Fresh Paint Crew.

Fresh Paint, a San Francisco Mural painting crew aims to defy assumptions of what is possible with a spray can. The group is comprised of and collaborates with some of the best aerosol painters from the Bay Area and beyond, creating innovative murals in San Francisco. Concepts vary in aesthetic tone from photorealistic to illustrative, utilizing the large pool of artistic backgrounds within the crew. They produce murals that fit with their environment and are easily digestible for everyone from blue-collar workers to aerosol art fanatics.

Wes Wong is a visual problem solver living in the San Francisco Bay Area. He works in various aspects of the web by day: branding, user experience, user interface design, web marketing and front end; while painting big murals by night. His background in graphic design has brought a unique approach to mural work, striving to build a strong visual concept that relates to the space or client’s vision, often times finding a mixture of the two.

He quit the typical aerosol life years ago to start a family and focus on professional work. The spray paint itch was hard to kick, so Wes shifted his focus to persuing walls where he can produce large scale murals.

The wall is part of the Hotel Phoenix, the neighborhood is rough and the graffiti prolific.  The purpose of StreetSmARTS is to help prevent graffiti by having property owners hire select artists to paint a surface that has been vandalized in the past, in hopes to prevent further vandalism.

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Leaping Lizards

 Posted by on November 16, 2012
Nov 162012
 

Myrtle and Larkin
The Tenderloin

 This piece is by Satyr.  Satyr has some other murals in the Haight.

Satyr is known for his quality murals in San Francisco. He was brought up by The Master Piece Creators, one of the original aerosol art crews to bring concept walls to the city. Years into his graffiti career, Satyr became formally trained in illustration.

The Haight – Buggin Out

 Posted by on April 10, 2012
Apr 102012
 
RAI Care Center
Haight and Shrader
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Buggin’ Out by Fresh Paint, was inspired by the relationship between the evolution of insect species and the evolution of aerosol lettering. Both may have once originated at a single source, yet through time altered their forms when migrating and adapting to different regions and their various conditions.
The mural was painted to represent a bug display case, replacing a few tiny critters with aerosol signatures from artists who’s styles are interconnected through influence.

Fresh Paint has a mural on the adjacent building as well as in Chinatown.

 

The Haight in Murals

 Posted by on April 9, 2012
Apr 092012
 
RAI Care Center
Haight and Schrader

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This mural in the Haight Asbury district was dedicated to the rich history of the Haight Ashbury. It focuses on the elements born from the Summer of Love, and the movement sparked in 1967 towards a more peaceful society. It is located on the corner of Haight and Shrader, just half a block from the epicenter of the Summer of Love and where shows were played in the park.

The wall was rendered as 4 large psychedelic posters, the 3 to the right pay homage to the 3 big elements of the time: Peace, Poster Art, and Music. Each poster design gave nods at original 70’s posters, adorned with the lettering styles reminiscent of Victor Moscoso, Wes Wilson, Rick Griffin, Alton Kelley & Stanley Mouse. Just like back then, aesthetics were mixed, like photorealism, cartooning, illustration and a heaping spoonful of aerosol techniques.

The poster on the left are the signatures of the painters, integrated in a psychedelic poster art background. It is a way to tie the mural in with more personal roots of the artists, and showcase the legacy of illegible lettering styles.

The work was done by Lost, Satyr and Wes Wong of Fresh Paint.  This crew is responsible a great dragon mural in Chinatown.

 

Chinatown’s Dragon Mural and More

 Posted by on July 22, 2011
Jul 222011
 
Chinatown – San Francisco
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Chinatown is chock a block with murals, and this is one of my favorites.  It is titled Dragons Gate and is by Wes Wong and Lost One.  According to their website Fresh Paint they are “a San Francisco based mural painting company offering a fresh take on aerosol wall painting.”  They are young, and their work shows that link from youth based tagging to professional mural execution”

You can find Dragon’s Gate on the corner of Trenton and Pacific Avenue.

This mural was sponsored in part by SFAC StreetSmArts Program.

Wentworth Street between Jackson and Washington presently holds these two murals.  The first is here thanks to the Art in Store Fronts Project (a San Francisco Arts Commission Program) and is painted by Robert Minervini.  Robert received his MFA from the San Francisco Arts Institute in 2009 and lives in San Francisco.  His works can be seen on his own website.  This mural is entitled “If these Walls Could Talk” and was done in collaboration with Adopt-An-Alleyway youth volunteers. It is a montage of images generated by interviews with local residents and the history of Wentworth Street.
This is also on Wentworth alley, painted by Adopt-An-Alleyway youths. It is a depiction of the “living room of Chinatown” Portsmouth Square.

The mission of the Adopt-An-Alleyway (AAA) Youth Project is to have high school students monitor and organize clean-ups to beautify Chinatown’s forty-one (41) alleyways, provide services to the Chinatown community, and to help these youth develop leadership skills.

They also run an Chinatown Alleyway’s Tour.

Chinatown has three times more alleys than streets and they all are worth exploring.  The locals have done an amazing job in cleaning up the alleys and giving tourists a reason to go down them, with markers, history walks and little finds like this.  By the way, Wentworth Street is nicknamed Salty Fish Alley because of the many dried seafood stores that filled it in the early 1900’s.

 

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