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It’s about time Phoenix sees some serious mural love. In the interest of giving credit to their artists and because we’re losing track of the times we’ve said, “Woah, when did that go up?”, we bring you Mural City, a series on the murals springing up around town — their artists, their hosts and their inspirations.
Artists: Joe Pagac and Charlie Brand
Location: Eye Lounge, 419 E. Roosevelt St
Every First Friday (or so), Joe Pagac makes the drive up from Tucson with buckets of paint in the back of his car.
He was hired by local promoter Charlie Levy in 2009 to paint murals advertising upcoming music and culture events on the west wall of eye lounge in downtown Phoenix. Ever since, he’s entertained crowds of First Friday goers and left us a (or another) nice reason to drive down Roosevelt Row.
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On Friday, Pagac painted a scene for Miniature Tigers‘ upcoming show at Crescent Ballroom.
His rotating mural is one of the oldest on the street, and one of the first well-known, highly publicized pieces of street art in downtown Phoenix. It was also one of the first to get tagged by another local artist for being an “ad”.
Pagac was and is more than happy to admit he gets paid to paint it and that yes, it’s essentially an advertisement (though we’ll say it’s a far cry from the “community mural/ad” that Legends Entertainment District just stuck up on the Luhrs building a few blocks away).
Miniature Tigers’ singer Charlie Brand (who created all of the album work for the band’s three albums) collaborated with Pagac on the mural design and painting. Check out a time lapse of the mural painting, by local promoter Psyko Steve, below:
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