Work began in July and took roughly a week for the duo who make up “Humanity in Art”, a group founded by Glassford with the goal of “rehabilitating” blank walls in urban, public spaces on Vancouver Island with large, colourful murals.
The design features interpretations of different book genres, completed with different easter eggs and is meant to help brighten and rehabilitate urban spaces by adding large art pieces.
It was a challenging commission for Semple and Glassford, who had to battle the elements.
“We would roll in early, early, we’d get here like 4 a.m. or 5 a.m. before anyone else was,” Semple said. “We’d get here for sunlight, we were trying to beat the heat so a big thing that cuts down our painting time in the summer is heat more so than anything else.”
The pair also had the focus of making it somewhat interactive.
“We wanted to try and create as much community engagement as we could through the use of bright colours then we have our sci-fi genre where you can pose underneath the spaceship,” Glassford said.
The mural was made possible thanks to a grant from the Canada Healthy Communities Initiative by Community Foundations Canada and The Nanaimo Foundation.
Both Glassford and Semple are already onto their next project with the B.C. Human Rights Commissioner office with a design centred around anti-hate messaging.
Semple added they’re still looking for space to paint a new Nanaimo Pride mural, after the original one on Wallace St. was vandalized in 2021.
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