Puppy Love

This was the first ever mural of the Wall-to-Wall Mural & Culture Festival, which faces the Food Fare parking lot.

Artist’s Statement: “Gabrielle Funk and I were invited to work on the wall of Food Fare on Maryland Street by a duo art consultation team Synonym Art Consultation as part of a Wall-to-wall Mural Exhibition & Festival which they organized. Gabrielle has been working on a theme of animals for quite some time and wanted to incorporate dogs, which a lot of people in the neighbourhood have as their companions. I wanted to brighten up the neighbourhood with playfulness and vivid colours. We designed our elements separately – Gabrielle did the dogs, and I did the rest – and then combined them together in a way that they complemented each other visually and conceptually. These seemingly aggressive dogs barking at each other are shooting hearts. They represent human conditions – could be interpreted as love and hate, superficial appearance and actual intention, conversation and arguments, etc. Our lives have many facets. Or they may be just barking at each other. Dogs are dogs. We humans don’t entirely understand what they do, like we humans never completely understand each other! One day, Gabrielle’s mom dropped by when the painting was mostly done, and we had a chat. In that conversation, she was talking about the existing Mural painting of a fruit market scene done by Dorothy Streilein (located on the right of our painting). Gabrielle’s mom saw it and jokingly told us that we had to incorporate some element from it – a wagon wheels, apples, watermelon or something in it. I found her idea quite amusing, so I secretly put a very realistic looking watermelon, which is also painted in Dorothy’s painting. You may not notice the watermelon in our painting if you just pass by it casually. One of the floating dots just above the hearts is a watermelon. It was important for me to somehow capture my memory of our conversation and laughter in that watermelon as our memento. I like painting things that are floating and elusive, undefined and unrestricted, and suggest movements. That’s how I came up my part. Adding the gray ‘shadow’ was my plan from the beginning, so that the entire painting looks like it’s elevated from the wall surface. I know that people look at it and don’t quite understand what it is, but certainly feel something good and positive about looking at it, and the image and feeling stay in their memory. I like making things which do those things to people.”

For more information on this mural visit:
http://www.takashiiwasaki.info/

Where to Find This Mural

Location: 115 Maryland St Winnipeg MB R3G 1K9 Get Directions