Scott Sueme is standing on a boom two storeys in the air, painting white stripes on the side of the Hootsuite headquarters at Ontario and 8th. It seems like nothing compared to the huge swaths of green, orange and black that he and his team have just finished blocking in (over a flurry of 12-hour days in the unrelenting sun) along the tech hub’s 13,000-square-foot facade.
According to Sueme, though, this is the tricky part – working with the contours of the monolithic building to maintain the integrity of the abstract design he has mapped out in two dimensions.
“You’re constantly adapting to the building,” he explains, pointing to the building’s countless windows and overhangs as he catches his breath, his feet now firmly back on the ground. “I’ve done a lot of large-scale projects before, but this is probably my most architecturally challenging, as well as my biggest wall to date.”
Sueme is one of more than 40 artists hired by the inaugural Vancouver Mural Festival (VMF) this summer to transform previously barren walls into permanent public art. Sueme, an accomplished graphic artist and one of the event’s most experienced muralists, was tasked with the festival’s largest wall. His fellow artists, however, have been equally busy – spraying and rolling out everything from graffiti to stencil to folk art to figurative works on more than 35 surfaces across the Main Street, Mount Pleasant and False Creek Flats areas.
And while people have been stopping to watch and take pictures of the works in progress for a few weeks now, the results will be formally unveiled this weekend in a one-day street party and self-guided walking tour on Aug. 20 (mapped out online and via the Do604 app).
Conceived by the Create Vancouver Society and inspired by public art festivals like Mural in Montreal, festivalgoers can take in the murals while enjoying music, events and activations up and down Main Street.
Highlights include work by international icons like Kashink (France), Bicicleta Sem Freio (Brazil), LowBros (Germany) and NeverCrew (Switzerland), as well as walls by renowned locals like Sueme, Ola Volo, DEDOS, Tim Barnard, Andrew Young, and Corey Bulpitt.
While those artists are well versed in mural work, though, select other participants are bravely attempting murals for the first time.
“A lot of the muralists are actually trained fine artists rather than actual mural painters, so it will be interesting to see their work on a large scale,” says Sueme. “It’s an interesting approach to a mural festival as well – that mix up between people that are known for doing exterior walls and people that are maybe not so known. [...] Seeing their work on a large scale will be quite impactful.”
It will also transform the Mount Pleasant area into a 30-block art walk. Organized in partnership with the City of Vancouver, Mount Pleasant Business Improvement Area and the Burrard Arts Foundation, the festival is anticipating 100,000 visitors its first time out. The daytime programming will mean street closures along Main between 7th and 12th Avenues that Saturday for performances, interactive art exhibits, community projects, markets and more. Further down, across from Pacific Central Station, Thornton Park will also host a market, art installations and a lounge for festivalgoers to relax and take break from the sun. Meanwhile, the connection between music and art will be explored with five free outdoor stages, the two largest being the Red Bull Tour Bus and the Truckstop Tailgate Party at the Red Truck Brewery on East 1st, as well as a club music series featuring artists like Shad, Andrew WK and Timer Timbre at venues like the Biltmore, the Fox Cabaret and the Cobalt.
In addition to the backing of the businesses that either donated walls or sponsored supplies, VMF has enjoyed widespread community support as well as a $200,000 grant from the City of Vancouver’s Innovation Fund as part of Mayor Gregor Robertson’s Public Art Boost. Part of that program’s mandate is to spur on and eliminate barriers to new public art projects, and VMF executive director David Vertesi hopes this ambitious initiative will transform the way art is seen in the city.
“The thing that I love about murals – public art in general but murals and street art specifically – is it’s this kind of feedback loop,” says the Hey Ocean musician and Sing it Fwd co-founder, seated next to Sueme at a coffee shop across from Hootsuite. “Artists are creating stuff that’s coming out of the place they live and the stories of their lives and things like that, and that then becomes the input and the context for the city in which we work, in which people make art, for tourism, people coming to see the city. […] It’s sewn into the culture of the area.”
“That’s a great way of putting it,” says Sueme. “In my experience I could do a piece on a canvas and someone buys it and puts it up in their home, and that’s an awesome experience. But I think when you’re talking about murals and public art, you get to see people actually using your artwork and engaging with it.”
“Half of these walls people never knew existed,” adds Vertesi, with a laugh. “That’s the cool thing, for me. […] There are a couple walls that I talk to people about – and these are massive walls, they loom over the area – and when I talk about them people are like, ‘I can’t even picture it.’ So you’re taking this city, and people are all of a sudden connecting to the space around them and the architecture. I think, if it’s done right, you’re highlighting something about the community.”
• For the full list of artists and events, visit VancouverMuralFestival.com.
