Painting out loud

I’ve been consistently inspired by Kevin Harris’ Museum of Public Art project in Old South Baton Rouge. It’s about as grassroots as you can get with a neighborhood revival and it celebrates the local community and all its leaders, while bringing in top street artists from around the world to add vibrant colors to the landscape.

As Harris told me last fall—while murals were going up on buildings at Government and 14th streets and Myrtle Walk and Eddie Robinson Sr. Drive—he’s hustling to get work up on the walls first before starting a fundraising campaign to support the various programs and events he has in mind for the museum. That means paying for the artists’ flights to Baton Rouge himself and coordinating the necessary wall space. Since last year, he’s brought in a handful of street artists from New York City to Portugal and added a wall on the corner of Eddie Robinson and South Street to the roster.

Harris has been posting videos of the progress to Facebook, including this one of California artist Chor Boogie’s eye-popping work, “Modern Hieroglyphics”:

And here’s Portuguese artist Odeith’s anamorphic graffiti, which looks like it’s bouncing off the wall if you stand just right:

Next up in the upcoming months is German graffiti artist Case, as well as Chemis, a graffiti artist originally from Kazakhstan.

Many of the current works are on the exterior walls of buildings, so you can easily check them out. The building on the corner of Myrtle Walk and Eddie Robinson Sr. Drive, across from the old Lincoln Theater, contains several pieces on the interior walls. Harris plans to open those doors to the public once all the interior walls are completed, tentatively this summer. For now, you can peek through the glass doors to catch a glimpse at the handiwork of Odeith and Chor Boogie.

And for more info, check out the museum’s Facebook page.

Image at the top is a still from Kevin Harris’ video of Chor Boogie.