Up Here
Every summer, Up Here brings together dozens of muralists, musicians and installation artists to transform downtown Sudbury into an urban art gallery. Up Here is a project of We Live Up Here, a volunteer-run non-profit organization founded in 2012 around the simple idea that art can playfully reshape the Sudbury community.
In 2019 I was honoured to be asked to create a giant 8 x 20 metre mural – transforming a public space, and the corner of Sudbury’s TD bank in the heart of the city.
Client
Up Here Urban Art and Music Festival
Disciplines
Illustration, Mural
Exploration
I presented 3 mural concepts, all relating to themes of sexuality, hedonism, and reclamation of space and representation for the queer community. The main challenge was to convince the festival and a property owner to let me paint something so overtly queer in a highly visible public space.
Denouement – The Untangling
The property owner of the TD bank in downtown Sudbury agreed to host the mural on their walls. The mural was finally painted with the help of friends and volunteers over 2 weeks in August 2019. The final mural was revealed at the festival alongside other muralists, such as RISK and TRAV MSK.
