Downtown South Bend’s Mural Mania was nearly wrapped up on Monday, with two of the seven artists still finishing their work. We checked in with festival curator Alex Allen.
Allen, herself a noted muralist, says this year’s fifth-annual Mural Mania went smoothly, with two firsts: the first international artist, who goes by the name Royyal Dog, hails from South Korea. And his piece covering the south side of the Tri-Gon Building at Jefferson and Lafayette boulevards is the biggest one yet, at about 70 feet by 45 feet.
It depicts a woman hugging a dog with a cat sitting next to them.
“It’s photo realism," Allen says. "I mean I could stand in front of this mural for hours and just be in awe.”
Even taller is the mural painted on the City Hall parking garage by Cameron Moberg of San Francisco. It shows a tower of animals standing atop one another, with a purple elephant at the base, supporting a blue gorilla, a yellow bear, a blue wolf, a pink fox, and a boy reaching for a crown.
“It’s cool because each of the animals they have like a different personality, so some of them are sweet and the gorilla is kind of tough-looking, so Cameron did an amazing job.”
Rising 92 feet, that mural was so tall that organizers had to rent a taller lift. They’ve started a GoFundMe to raise money for that unexpected cost.
