![]() ![]() To begin, through the assistance of some local friends and contacts including YoungArts, I met and photographed a number of awesome local young folks for references. ![]() I wanted to paint something representative of this place, its history, and its people, while conveying strength, dignity, balance, solidarity, and love. I take my responsibility to the communities I make art for seriously and approach every project with conscientiousness, especially so with this project considering the scale, location and context. Although there were already a number of art spaces in the Wynwood area when I first painted there in 2007, it was still mostly a blue collar, working class area so I was blown away to see how much had changed. I was a little hesitant to take on such a massive task around the same time I was becoming a father, but I couldn't say no to such an epic platform. Ten years passed and then this opportunity came along to paint some of the best and most visible walls of my career in this place that had, for better or worse, become a world famous epicenter for public art. ![]() I was very proud of those murals but, after seeing how saturated the area was becoming with what was starting to be labeled "street art", it seemed time for a break. Returning to Miami for this project was a pretty big deal after having last painted murals in Wynwood with Retna during Art Basel in 2007, 2008, and 2009 as part of Primary Flight. Every line and pattern that these figures are composed of was spraypainted with the hope that together they might transmit to the viewer some of the love and soul that went into them. They were created with thousands of spray cans, no painting assistance, and months of long, hot, often rainy or windy nights from dusk until dawn, high up on a swing stage. They're a permanent public art work commissioned by the Related Group through Primary Projects for the Wynwood 25 building (next to Wynwood Walls and the Museum of Graffiti). These are my first murals in Miami since 2009, and some of the largest and most visible in Wynwood. ![]()
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