BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAY
El Mac, the LA based aerosol Caravaggio has just illuminated a university wall in Boston with a portrait of his wife as alchemist, a glowing vision completed on the side of Northeastern’s Meserve Hall this month in time for Spring graduation.
El Mac (photo © Todd Mazer)
“The meeting of art and sciences is key to this campus,” says Todd Mazer, who lives in the city and who spent a lot of time with the artist while he painted, shooting incredible photos of the process. The image based on a photo of Kim presents a perfect marriage of symbols for the university, but also may refer directly to the artists’ personal lineage, he confides.
El Mac (photo © Todd Mazer)
“Mac’s father went to Northeastern and studied Engineering where he met Mac’s mother, who was an artist going to MassArt at the time,” he explains, “so the lightning, which is science, and the brush, which is art, just may represent his parents. In his distinctive style that includes scientifically chilling paint cans in a cooler with ice, El Mac renders an heroic, comely, and gentle figure even on this rough surface using a circular patterning that appears alternately mechanically digitized or smooth as a Vermeer, depending on your angle and distance from the work.
Even the starry sky may be a reference to his father, we learn, because of his father’s history with things astronomical. “Also the stars above could be of significance too because although Mac was born in LA he moved to Phoenix because his father was pursuing a career in the space program.”
El Mac (photo © Todd Mazer)
On breaks from plowing through 150 or so cans of paint, El Mac also took time to see art at his dad’s Alma Matter, poking inside the Museum of Fine Arts, Todd tells us. “He mostly painted but since he was just across the street from the MFA it was on his mind and when he got some small windows of time he would head over there,” says Mazer.
“It was nice to see him get off the lift and put down the iced out cans and catch some inspiration from a different surface. I remember him with a pencil and a sketchbook in front of a sculpture and just like earlier in the day at the wall I got a sense he was somewhere he belongs.”
Our sincere thanks to Todd for sharing these images with BSA readers.
El Mac (photo © Todd Mazer)
El Mac (photo © Todd Mazer)
Northeastern University (photo © Todd Mazer)
El Mac (photo © Todd Mazer)
El Mac (photo © Todd Mazer)
El Mac (photo © Todd Mazer)
El Mac (photo © Todd Mazer)
El Mac (photo © Todd Mazer)
<<>>><><<>BSA<<>>><<<>><><BSA<<>>><><<>BSA<<>>><<<>><><BSA
Please note: All content including images and text are © BrooklynStreetArt.com, unless otherwise noted. We like sharing BSA content for non-commercial purposes as long as you credit the photographer(s) and BSA, include a link to the original article URL and do not remove the photographer’s name from the .jpg file. Otherwise, please refrain from re-posting. Thanks!
<<>>><><<>BSA<<>>><<<>><><BSA<<>>><><<>BSA<<>>><<<>><><BSA
238
138
45
Other Articles You May Like from BSA:
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities. Now screening : 1. "A Tale of Two Murals" Atlanta on PBS BSA Special Feature: A Tale of Two Murals Today we tak...
Always wanted to make suggestions to Okuda about his color choices? Interested in being an assistant painter in his Madrid studio? Wishing you had an opportunity to adult-color but are missing the ac...
Since the early 70s Lonely Planet publishing has made guidebooks for travelers of the world, enabling people to gain a greater understanding and to appreciate localities, cultures, and histories. Ed B...
There are times when an artist needs to be completely obvious to get their message out into the world, and Bordalo II is setting the tone for this year’s unofficial ONO’U festival in the gorgeous nat...
Not quite spring, the Art Fairs are arriving in New York ahead of the tulips. We strolled the impossibly long aisles and peered into the booths to find the folks who have at other times been called ...
