Rough outlines, accents stripes, and shades of blue, green and hot pink splash across a brick wall at the Cesar Chavez Community School in south Phoenix. A 15-by-12 foot, cement book stands in the center, where the face of the school’s namesake will soon be carved. The mural-in-progress is a project by…
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, “Whoa, when did that go up?”, we bring you Mural City, a series on the murals springing up around town — their artists,…
David Quan deals in blue ooze. You may have noticed his signature paint drips on canvases around town, and if you’ve taken a drive down Grand Avenue or Jefferson Street, you’ve likely seen them on a few façades. The local artist is a rare breed in the street art community,…
As if the lineup for the 12th installment of Chaos Theory, the annual art show/who’s who in the local art community, couldn’t get sweeter, organizer and local painter Randy Slack was nice enough to put donuts on the postcard. On October 7, the doors of Legend City Studios will open to…
With just a little less than a month to flex our creative cartography skills, Jackalope Ranch and Regular Gallery proudly announce the ten artists participating in You Are Here: a collection of maps of Phoenix: Melinda Bergman, Safwat Saleem, Angela Cazel Jahn, Marshall Shore, Sarah Hurwitz, Breeze, Sue Chenoweth, Carrie…
Gina and Derrick Suarez shut the doors (and stripped the interior) of Paisley Violin, their house/cafe/art gallery, at the beginning of this month and announced they’ll be reopening their operation across the street — in the old Universal Hair Salon at 925 Grand Avenue. The couple took the iconic Paisley…
It’s no secret we love maps. Big maps, small maps, maps of First Friday, maps of local foodie events, maps of the world, and maps of our favorite place in the world: Phoenix. For October’s Third Friday, we’ve asked 10 local artists to create maps of Phoenix. No medium, scale,…
You might not see William Barajas or his tag, MAWD around Phoenix streets for a while; Phoenix Judge Sherry K. Stephens sentenced Barajas to two and a half years in prison after he confessed to more than 300 acts of graffiti in Phoenix. The 20-year-old was caught tagging a light…
Phoenix Design Week is right around the corner and a handful (actually, more than 100) local designers created posters for the annual poster exhibition. This year’s theme: “Perception.” Interpretation of that theme was left up to the designers when they created their posters and the interpretation is now up to you, as…
Tempe Center for the Arts’ latest exhibition, Mixing It Up: Building an Identity celebrates Mexican American artwork and examines the identity of artists who have been influenced by the mixing of Mexican and American Culture in the United States. More than 60 pieces by Mexican, American, and Mexican American artists, including Luis Jimenez, Enrique…
We were sad when Atomic Comics closed all of its stores last month, but luckily, there’s no shortage of alternatives for comic book fans in the Valley. Whether you’re looking for an energetic atmosphere filled with caffeinated gamers and superhero mannequins, or a quiet vault filled with endless boxes of meticulously…
is surrounded in his Tempe studio by tin, sketches of film cameras, and a huge inspiration wall that grows behind his desk. It’s a space that he’s shared with other local creatives and fellow grad students in the photography program at ASU. He says it’s a working space — and a good…
After taking a few courses at the East Valley Institute of Technology and interning at Honeywell, art was the furthest thing from Geoffrey Gersten’s mind.”I was doing static component tool design,” he laments of his post-EVIT sojourn, explaining that his Honeywell gig entailed designing tools to machine fixed (or non-revolving)…
”When I was 4, I saw saguaros in an encyclopedia,” says Brian Harrison. “I was obsessed with them. They’re what brought me to Arizona.”Harrison says the Southwestern landscape is an inspiration for a lot of his artwork; it’s the reason he lives in Arizona. The local artist turned 50 this year,…
You’ll see some famous faces if you visit Eye Lounge on Friday, September 16. You could even tell Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio off to his face, and not worry about retribution. That’s because Arpaio’s head — along with those of Sarah Palin, John McCain, Tiger Woods, Kim Kardashian, and…
I’m always somewhat leery of museum exhibitions based on work collected by one person. Many times, these shows are less than stellar, with an unsuspecting viewing audience ending up a prisoner of the collector’s particular aesthetic and vision, which can, on occasion, be brutally banal and screamingly self-absorbed. I’m glad…
To kickoff the Celebración Artística de las Américas Festival (Artistic Celebration of the Americas), a group of local artists will lead an informal discussion panel on the Phoenix Art Museum’s current Latino exhibition Modern Mexican Painting for the Andrés Blaisten Collection.Considered the world’s most significant private collection of Mexican art,…
Pete Townsend’s intentionally trashed countless guitars on stage. But the guitarist of The Who would probably be hard-pressed to smash a single axe in the “Six-String Masterpieces” exhibit that opened Friday at Mesa Arts Center. Each guitar in this exhibition is a custom work of art, painted by a well-known…
ASU Art Museum’s season kickoff in September. While you might be tempted to touch the textured and intricate work of featured artist Juan Downey, you probably won’t want to put your hands anywhere near his piece that’s accompanied by a live, moody, six-foot-long anaconda.The exhibition, titled “Juan Downey: The Invisible Architect,”…
