Our Backyard

Our Backyard by artist Ann Northrup was located in the Fairmount neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This mural was Northrup’s first mural for Mural Arts Philadelphia. It is painted on two walls that are joined at a 90° angle. Crossing the corner is a trompe l’oeil fence in perspective, a fancy art historical way of saying a realistic looking optical illusion that creates a 3-D space on a 2-D medium. Where the fence post appears to come forward, the actual wall it is painted on goes back into the corner. A river landscape comes from the left above the fence, and Boathouse Row begins, continuing past the corner above the connecting wall, culminating with the Philadelphia Museum of Art. In the corner enclosed by the two walls is a garden, continuous with the painted garden. Many of the same things that grow there are depicted in the mural (corn, collards, tomatoes, irises, broccoli, etc). So, when the plants mature in the summer, it can be hard to tell the real from the painted. A porch and gazebo are at the right and left ends of the mural. The roofs of each structure meet and mesh with the cornices of the actual buildings, again blurring the distinctions between the real and the illusionistic.

Location Note: Mural no longer on view at this location (covered by construction ca. 2010).