Small Walls

Small Walls is a Mural Arts program created to amplify emerging and underrepresented artists. It provides them the opportunity to create and lead their first mural project, while amplifying the artist’s creative expression and skills. The murals are meant to be on display for a year, with the intention to rotate to another artist to provide additional opportunities. For this first iteration, three artists who have worked with Mural Arts in the past couple of years as artist assistants were selected through an RFQ and selection panel. Featured artists included Jaq “Jingle” Masters, Ibi Padrón Venegas, and Yuliya Semenova.

To celebrate the installation of these three Small Walls murals, an artist talk event was held at Paradigm Art Gallery on May 21, 2024. The artists had the opportunity to talk about their experiences with the production of their murals and their dreams going forward.

Listening to Hear by Jaq “Jingle” Masters

1530 E Montgomery Avenue, Philadelphia

This mural offers visually surrealistic illustrations of an eclectic garden of ears embodying butterflies and gramophones representing bloomed morning glories. The satin bonnets in the distance and zebra-like background patterns denote hair braiding customs and thoughtfully expresses the sweetness of femmehood through the lenses of black queer culture. The QR code leads to a spotify playlist of inspirational songs chosen by a survey of black femmes with the prompt, “name a song that makes you feel heard”.

Endless Unfoldment by Ibi Padrón Venegas

1401 N American Street, Philadelphia

This mural represents  a dreamlike environment that exists outside of the expectations of time. A garden where life and death are concurrent; where questions and their answers exist within each other. At the horizon is the limit of death. At the ground is regeneration and growth. At the center is a meditating figure accompanied by their preoccupying thoughts and personas existing within. Four hounds representing fear and anxiety creep from behind a towering deity that welcomes all the existing elements within the piece with open arms.

Home is Where We Are by Yuliya Semenova
501 S. 7th Street, Philadelphia

This piece is a meditation on being an immigrant while witnessing your home country in a midst of war. Yuliya hopes this mural can help the viewer  feel the artists’ gratitude to Philadelphia for welcoming her, and her hope that life will always find its way out of destruction.