Philadelphia’s Mural Arts has helped create literally thousands of gorgeous murals all over the city. If you visit their website https://www.mural arts.org you can find out about mural tours. Highly recommended!
I am in love with this new abstract mural (2021) by artist Tim McFarlane that was created with curator Ryan Strand Greenberg and Mural Arts. Vibrant, jazzy and uplifting on a somewhat desolate street in North Philly at the periphery of Chinatown, it just pops. You have to stop and stand and take it in. You can’t not feel happy looking at it.
In an interview with Philly’s Streets Dept (discovering art on the streets of Philadelphia) McFarland describes how “the piece alludes to the natural origins of the intersection of 10th Street, Callowhill Street, and Ridge Avenue, as that area was once considered a suburb before railroads, factories, and large-scale immigration began to change the landscape.” The piece is about history and change – a changing diversifying city, always on the move. In an artist statement on his home page he further notes “by merging aspects of my lived experience, observations of changes occurring around me and imagined scenarios, I make non-objective work that reflects broad experiences of life and memory.”
Taking in the mural and bringing our own thoughts and feelings to it standing on that street corner we can share in that experience.
