If you live in the St.Petersburg area you have probably noticed beautiful colors, pretty faces, giant sharks and inspirational words pop up across the sides of buildings for the past couple of weeks. Oversized pieces of art painted by amazing art legends from all over the world are now a few miles from our homes. Where did they come from?! The idea came from local artist TES ONE and a couple of others who started getting murals up around the community after the first Leave a Message exhibition at the Morean Arts Center. They wanted the exhibition to live in and outside the gallery. They wanted to expand that idea in a big way and use St.Petersburg its self as an art gallery. It worked! You can now see murals all around the city from Bloom Art Center on 5th Ave N to Genius Central on 5th Ave S. I wanted to document this festival for the people who cannot drive down the street to witness how beautiful and amazing our city has become. The Shine St.Petersburg Mural Festival started the first week of September and seems like it will never end. Of course the artists who traveled far to help make our city beautiful have gone home or moved on to beautify something else. But many local artists are still painting, still coming up their next idea for a mural and still getting over the high from the last couple weeks of this community artistic movement. Take a look at what you missed. If you didn’t miss shit, take a look at the new Shine on St.Pete through my eyes.
ERIK JONES/ VITALE BROS.
2260 1ST AVE S
This beauty is Erik Jones’ first large-scale mural ever! He did amazing work with help from fellow Shine On St.Pete artists, Vitale Bros. They were one of the firsts to kick off this amazing festival and they were the first to finish up. This colorful masterpiece is one of my favorites of the festival. Erik Jones is a St.Petersburg native who now works out of Brooklyn, New York focusing mostly on work for art galleries. His work is vibrant and colorful and there is a large amount of realism in his beautiful female subjects. Erik’s art has also been featured on the cover of Hi-Fuctose Magazine & on Forbes.com. Go check out his work downtown in person. You really cannot experience it the way you should through pictures.
RICKY WATTS
600 1ST AVE N
This was Rickys biggest mural to date. Ricky was accompanied but his well-known friend Alex Pardee for the first week he was at it. Ricky and Alex worked through the heat, through the rain and over night. I stopped by to check up on his progress every day or so. There was only one time I went by there that he wasn’t slaving away on this beast. Not only is Ricky talented but he’s super friendly & funny too. Taking people up on the lift while he painted, stopping to take pictures and talk to fans, and painting the phone number of the person tasked with delivering him lunch on the wall because he didn’t have a pen and paper up on the lift. Ricky is from Northern California where he dominates the graffiti scene with his vibrant colors and many layers of design. You can see his work from Oakland to Atlanta. Well, now to Florida. 🙂 Ricky finished up this beauty on the last couple days of the festival.
ANDREW SPEAR
2260 1ST AVE S
Andrew Spear painted his masterpiece on the same building but opposite side as Erik Jones. Andrew grew up on the south shore of Boston and ended up in Orlando, Florida after being recruited for scenic work and shortly after starting his own scenic and design company. Andrew is motived by music, movies and pop culture and so is his work. He’s done work for Law & Order, MTV-Real World, The Daily Buzz, and my favorite- a mural for Run the Jewels themselves.
BASK
1120 1ST AVE N
BASK- Make History. Ales Bask Hostomsky has art throughout Detroit, Brooklyn & St.Petersburg and can also be seen in the movie Iron Man 3. He grew up in Florida after fleeing the communist Czechoslovakia as a young child. I personally didn’t get to see BASK work on this piece on the side of Red Mesa Mercado. Although I did get to watch him work at the Secret Walls event in Tampa. It is amazing to watch the thought process of an artist at work.
123KLAN
301 20TH ST S
123KLAN consists of Klor & Scien, a French husband and wife graffiti crew with amazing talent. The artists from the farthest to join us for the Shine St.Pete Mural Festival. You can see their work all over the world from Berlin, Honolulu, LA, Mexico City, New York, Paris, Tokyo & more. 123Klan has being doing their art for over two decades and have dominated the graffiti scene. They also have their own street wear brand featuring the well-known Bandit. Check out their website and purchase some sweet swag @ 123klan.com. Klor & Scien started as soon as they flew in and worked until 6am. Just like everyone else they got rained out, dehydrated and sun burnt. They worked together to beat the heat as you can see in my pictures.
MORNING BREATH
2042 CENTRAL AVE
This is Morning Breath’s first mural as well. Morning Breath consists of street artists Doug Cunningham & Jason Noto who graced us with their presence from Brooklyn, New York. Morning Breath has done everything from commercial work with big names such as Nike, Adidas, Vans, Activision, Pepsi, Snickers and many more to work for musicians such as Brand New, Foo Fighters & Queens of the Stone Age. They’ve been nominated for a Grammy and asked to show and speak about their work around the globe. The wall they left us with is so sick and also matches my Me Undies, hence the pant-less pictures. :p
GREG MIKE
915 1ST AVE N
Greg Mike & Larry Loudmof came to visit us from Atlanta, Georgia. His art can be seen all over New York, Chicago & Hawaii. His work is inspired by iconic American mid-century cartoons and his passion to reinvent public spaces through art and design. Greg is the founder and creative director of ABV, a multi-platform studio specializing in branding, apparel design visual production. It also works as a gallery exhibiting artists from around the world. It was an honor to see this man work on this amazing piece. Its vibrance and radness grab your attention from a block away. Thank you for gracing us with your presence and leaving us with such a fun, energetic and colorful landmark.
I periscoped Greg Mike kicking ass and taking names. Check it out below.
SHARK TOOF
687 CENTRAL AVE
Shark Toof is a LA based graffiti artist whose work is internationally recognized and can be seen in TV commercials for Samsung and Apple. A sharks reputation is often fearsome but Shark Toof uses his art to give the viewer strength, optimism and possibility. Shark Toof projected this massive shark on the side of State Theater from almost a block away in the middle of the night. He got lucky by getting one of the coolest canvases of the festival. He too was as nice as ever, explaining to me exactly what was left to do to make this bad boy come to life every time I came to visit.
MICHAEL VASQUEZ & HOXXOH
2260 1ST AVE S
Another first for St.Petersburg native Michael Vasquez. This is his first large-scale mural and with the help of Miami-based street artist Hoxxoh, it came out flawless. I apologize for the lack of progress pictures for this piece. This is an amazingly detailed tribute to our city and the St.Petersburg pier that is now being rebuilt. This is the beautiful stuffing to the building that is an Andrew Spear & Erik Jones mural Oreo.
EVOCA 1
1246 CENTRAL AVE
Evoca1 is another amazing Miami based painter, designer and muralist. His work can be seen on walls all the way from Mexico & Peru to England. His goal is to gain awareness of the most important local and world issues through art. Evoca1 titled this piece “Through the perils of our youth” and added “Too young to fly, too soft to be wild. Ma’ works too much, Pa’ tries so hard, while we just try to survive through the perils of our youth.”” While we are so easily judgmental of images, race and economic classes, we must not forget that not all of us are born into the ideal world.” This was one of the last murals to be finished, his time here actually having to be extended due to the Tampa Bay Rays games needing the lot for parking so often. Keeping Evoca1 from working on this beauty during that time.
HOXXOH
2130 CENTRAL AVE
Hoxxoh also put up a mural on his own. Also known as Douglas Hoekzema, Hoxxoh’s art “serves to show that time in itself is a beautiful energy meant to be marveled at.” Hoxxoh’s amazing murals can be found in Detroit, Hollywood and the Miami Marine Stadium.
VITALE BROS.
2063 Central Ave.
Vitale Bros started their own mural right at the close of the Shine On St.Pete festival. Keep this party going guys! The Vitale Bros include Johnny Vitale & Paul Vitale who run a St.Petersburg based mural and sign company. The brothers have done work for the Tampa Bay Rays, the Tampa Bay Bucs, Busch Gardens, Hooters & more. They have also collaborated in set design for movies such as Spring Breakers.
LEAVE A MESSAGE
@ Morean Arts Center 9/12
The Shine on St.Pete mural fest was capped off on friday night at the Morean Arts Center with Leave a Message. This art show featured several of the muralists & their art on display.
SECRET WALLS TAMPA
@ Cass Contemporary 9/18
Secret Walls is a 90 minute live illustration battle hosted by Tom Higgenson. Competitors featured Bask, Greg Mike, Denial & Frank Forte. They were put on teams of two and the first team to fill up their wall first were the winners. Greg Mike & Frank Forte walked away with the victory. It was a great cap to the end of the festival. Check out my periscope from that night.
There you have it. Friends were made, fun was had & St.Pete is looking better than ever. This isn’t the last time you will see a mural go up in our town. Shine St.Pete will be back. I for one wish that it would never end but in a way, it won’t. I missed a few of the murals and artists that joined us for Shine St.Petersburg and there are many murals and artists that were not a part of the festival itself. They deserve to be recognized as well so check out their amazing work. Artists include: Ya Laford, Stoic, Chad Mize (who did the SHINE mural along with community advocates, professional educators and kids from the Bloom arts program), Hitnes, James Oleson, Palehorse Design, Pep Rally Inc, Sebastian Coolidge, Derek Donnelly & many more.
This festival not only made me appreciate graffiti art more & inspire me to be artistic, it also gave me the opportunity to meet some amazing people and make new friends. I have to say, I love my city a lot more now. I’ve thought more and more about moving out of Florida lately but downtown St.Pete has become a beautiful, friendly place with an amazing community and I’m happy to live in it. All it needs is some legal Marijuana. :p Anyways……get out there and see this stuff in person, you won’t regret it.
Love Always,
Pimpson
trainwreck1987 