DC Mural Art, part II.

Days after my post about Garin Baker's LeDroit Park mural, Prince of Petsworth blogged about a mural I had photographed last Summer behind Morgan's Seafood restaurant, not knowing the name of the artist or how to find it.

Morgan's Seafood. DC Landmark at Georgia Avenue and Irving, NW.
photo (c)Incorrigible Curmudgeon

Mural behind Morgan's Seafood restaurant.
Mural: (c) Joel Bergner
Photo: (c) Incorrigible Curmudgeon

Turns out his name is Joel Bergner and he has created several other murals in DC. I like that he makes it his mission to involve the communities in which his art is being created. In the course of creating his murals, he hires and trains local talent in the art of mural painting.

To me he has a 'primitivist,' almost 'fauvist' quality about his work. It is impossible to look at his Morgan's seafood mural without thinking about Paul Gaugin's Tahiti paintings.

Check out his interview and some more of his murals at Prince of Petworth.

In the meantime, another DC mural painter has emerged (courtesy of one of the commentors on Prince of Petworth), named Lisa Marie Thalhammer. Check out her images and insights on her website. Her work is more edgy, more confrontational. Here is her Boxer Girl mural

Boxer Girl mural, 73 'W' St. NW
Mural: (c)Lisa Marie Thalhammer
Photo: (c) Incorrigible Curmudgeon

Boxer Girl Mural, side of 73 "W" St.NW
Mural: (c) Lisa Marie Thalhammer
Photo: (c) Incorrigible Curmudgeon

on the side of a rowhouse in Bloomingdale (neighborhood just to the East of LeDroit Park). Her work has a comic book quality (in a 'Beavis and Butthead' sort of way) with an in-your-face grotesqueness not unlike Avedon's American West photo portraits or even the paintings of Francis Bacon.