Muralist brings art to Las Vegas skate park — VIDEO
In the course of an afternoon, the skate park at Winchester Cultural Center went from a few gray slabs of concrete to a a vibrant and fantastical landscape.
Los Angeles-based muralist Andrew Schoultz joined local artists, skaters and passersby Tuesday to paint the park in advance of his installation at UNLV’s Marjorie Barrick Museum in June.
The event was coordinated by the Barrick Museum and Clark County through the county’s arts plan.
The park at Winchester is one that a lot of families and children come to, said Alisha Kerlin, interim director of the museum.
When planning Schoultz’s exhibition — which will involve a large installation piece where he’ll paint on the museum walls — Kerlin thought there was no reason the walls needed to stop at UNLV.
“Maybe we can take it out into the community and make our community better and give it something a bit more permanent outside of the museum space,” Kerlin said.
Large, star-shaped splashes of sunny yellow provided the background for Schoultz’s designs: Giant, bright red eyes rimmed with hundreds of concentric arcs peered out from the yellow, interspersed with a repeated brick wall motif.
Schoultz grew up skating and spent nearly two decades in San Francisco in the 1980s and 90s, immersed in skateboarding and street art culture.
“I grew up up in the city skating in a lot of public plazas … (and) I always liked the aesthetics of these kind of things,” Schoultz said. “The idea was to sort of to bring some of those aesthetics into painting; building a skate park and painting it so it’s more like an art experience.”
Ed Fuentes, an arts writer in his final year of the UNLV MFA Studio Art program, also came out to paint and photograph the project Tuesday.
Fuentes said he saw his “worlds colliding” at the park. Fuentes specializes in street art and murals in the west and writes about it on his website “Paint This Desert.”
“It’s really nice because it combines academia and grassroots organizing,” Fuentes said. “I think that’s great for what public art, street art sort of does. It’s kind of crossing over borders.”
Contact Madelyn Reese at mreese@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0497. Follow @MadelynGReese.
The skatepark at Winchester Cultural Center is set to reopen at 10 a.m. Saturday, April 21. Andrew Schoultz will be there at 10 a.m. to meet and skate with the public.
Upcoming exhibition
What: “In Process: Every Movement Counts”
When: June 2 – Sept. 18
Where: UNLV Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art
An opening reception is set for 5-8 p.m. June 2 at the museum. The event is free and open to the public.
