New 45-foot mural unveiled in downtown Phoenix
Apr 11, 2021, 7:15 AM | Updated: 11:06 am
PHOENIX — Two renowned artists recently completed a new 45-foot mural sponsored by the Downtown Phoenix Partnership, officials have announced.
The central image is a black-and-white portrait of a teenage girl from Phoenix’s Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community, just east of Scottsdale.
“Downtown was built on the arts,” Devney Preuss, president and CEO of Downtown Phoenix Inc., said in a press release. “Large-scale public art pieces like this are important because they contribute to Phoenix becoming—and being known as—a creative city.”
It is located on the south wall of a historic two-story brick building adjacent to The Monroe tower at 111 W. Monroe Street.
In March 2019, an open call to artists by Artlink Inc. went out, spearheaded by ViaWest Group.
“ViaWest is honored to be able to collaborate with Downtown Phoenix Partnership and Artlink to bring this amazing mural by internationally-renowned artist El Mac, and Thomas ‘Breeze’ Marcus,” Danny Swancey, partner at ViaWest Group, said in the release. “So excited to be able to enrich our city and community through public art.”
When El Mac and Breeze were selected as a team they wanted to create something “warm, whimsical and represented the younger generation,” according to the release.
There is a lot of symbolism and planning that went into the piece, according to Breeze.
“It doesn’t get much more local than having a young person from the Salt River Pima-Maricopa community,” Breeze said. “To have a young person painted and represented in this way, right in the heart of downtown, is only fitting. This is the homeland of that tribe.”
Four different Native girls were photographed as possible images for the mural, according to the release.
The artists spent over three weeks on the project, finishing on April 5.
