2 new Spaceworks Tacoma murals brighten 11th & Market

March 25, 2014 3:10 pm
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A conceptual sketch for artist Diana Leigh Surma's "Show Your Stripes," a Market Street mural of abstract geometric shapes. (PHOTO COURTESY SPACEWORKS TACOMA)
A conceptual sketch for artist Diana Leigh Surma's "Show Your Stripes," a Market Street mural of abstract geometric shapes. (PHOTO COURTESY SPACEWORKS TACOMA)

A vacant building at the corner of South 11th Street and Market Street will soon boast two new murals that aim to activate the intersection, prevent vandalism, and foster creativity.

Artist Chelsea O’Sullivan is creating Turn on Spring, a long mural on a series of 10 large panels running down South 11th Street. “Early spring in Tacoma can be a little gray,” says O’Sullivan. “It rains, a lot. It is chilly. Driving into town is always beautiful, but where the city skyline meets with the clouds, they share the same hue and fade into one another. My goal is to capture the beauty that lives in this gray world and explode some color into it.”

On Market Street, artist Diana Leigh Surma is painting Show Your Stripes, an intricately laid out design of abstract geometric shapes. “This project celebrates the revitalization of Tacoma’s bustling downtown corridor and encourages youth participation in the arts,” says Surma. “The design incorporates bold colors and overlapping planes that stretch across the mural’s surface to create a unified composition. Like the networks of shapes that shift before the viewer’s eyes, Tacoma is a city constantly transforming and reinventing itself. However, the roots of its history and traditions, its stripes, stand to remind us of what came before.”

These new murals are part of the eleventh round of Artscapes exhibitions organized by Spaceworks Tacoma. Over the course of the program, 84 large-scale art installations, murals, and videos, along with performances and events, have taken place in vacant storefronts throughout downtown Tacoma. This round of Artscapes applications were reviewed in October by a panel that included local art instructors, photographers, and other art specialists.

More information is available online here.

To read the Tacoma Daily Index‘s complete and comprehensive coverage of Spaceworks Tacoma, click on the following links:

A conceptual sketch for artist Chelsea O'Sullivan's "Turn On Spring," a long mural on a series of 10 large panels running down South 11th Street. (PHOTO COURTESY SPACEWORKS TACOMA)

A conceptual sketch for artist Chelsea O’Sullivan’s “Turn On Spring,” a long mural on a series of 10 large panels running down South 11th Street. (PHOTO COURTESY SPACEWORKS TACOMA)

A sneak preview of artist Chelsea O'Sullivan's work-in-progress "Turn On Spring," a long mural on a series of 10 large panels running down South 11th Street. (PHOTO COURTESY SPACEWORKS TACOMA)

A sneak preview of artist Chelsea O’Sullivan’s work-in-progress “Turn On Spring,” a long mural on a series of 10 large panels running down South 11th Street. (PHOTO COURTESY SPACEWORKS TACOMA)

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