Street Art: Center's piece @ Central Art Supply

The walls of the small building that serves as a canvas on the corner of 24th & Central are some of the few that allow graffiti artists to legally paint their works. The city has very strict regulations about the painting of graffiti of any kind legally.  Luckily, Central Art Supply still provides these walls, although I keep hearing how that little building is going to be torn down soon.

Chris Center is an artist who has been reviewed here before [Link]. I own one of his works. On the left is about 1/2 of one side of the mural. It is of a Maya Warrior arcing back, as if in the process of dying.  Note Center's signature along the middle of the right edge of the frame.

Here is the other half, with classic Chris Center articulated industrial machine-like forms in process (hidden lettering?), leading up to the faceless/masked warrior's back as shown in the first illustration.

Chris Center Mural

Here you can see it in its entirety. But there is more, because it wraps around that back wall...

Chris Center

On the back panel is an image of a mayan priest conducting a ritual by a (world?) tree adjacent to a courtyard. Just to the right of the top edge center, is a hovering UFO. The smoke offering of the priest wraps around to the other side and joins up with the articulated machine-like forms. Up close, my impression was that this work was a little more hurried than the prior one at the same site.

Close-up of the priest figure. Note he wears the Christian Cross and a Mayan God.

Overall view of Chris Center's mural. The iconology of the work isn't all that clear to me, but I would guess that it is connected with the advent of 2012 and or something like the rise of the machines (the day after the singularity).







Congratulations to Chris on the work, and again, to Central Art Supply, a great resource for artists and one of the few local arts stores left. Support your local businesses.