My unintentional mural tryptic on the East Side of Downtown Houston was finally finished today. These murals were painted over the course of probably about 18 months between 2024-2025. The mural on the far left was finished about a week ago but before a final photo could be taken some graffiti on the far right mural needed to be fixed.
Each mural is the same size, measuring approximately 26 panels wide and the height of the building. This in some sense feels like the end of an era but I don’t necessarily want to say that because I love painting walls and never want to feel like that chapter of expression is closed. Each design I painted was a design I was very excited about painting at the time I started each portion. With the first two murals I wanted to somehow reconcile both flatness and depth in the design. I like the idea of the decorative Matisse background in the first one as being an integral component of the still life in the foreground. With the second mural, the middle one, I again wanted to create an interesting play between flatness in depth. The picture of a big bend that composes the background of the picture should have immense depth, however it was my goal to flatten that depth of the landscape with the goldfish scattered across the “foreground” and casting shadows on the image, thus flattening it.
The last design was too made in the studio via collage however it possesses more of a graphic, immediate quality that when I saw I didn’t hesitate to execute. I like the simplicity and narrative impact of the last design very much. It was also the simplest in design and the easiest to paint. I suppose these three murals represent a process of simplification that occurred throughout the year and a half of my progression as a designer and a painter.
I think more insights worth sharing will present themselves with time but I just want to share this picture in the immediate. I have a lot on my mind as I am traveling tomorrow for personal reasons and I feel like my painting career is at a small impasse, perhaps less an impasse and more of a pivot. A reframing. No one in Houston paints like this, expressively and with rigorous consideration given to design and the problems presented (and to be solved) via the application of paint on a flat surface. I don’t, and will not stop for anything, but a short breather is in order during this season and the culmination of this massive wall feels like an appropriate place to turn the page and start a new chapter. I know my recognition here will come but I don’t know how much longer I can wait for it either, hence the pivot. I will not stop painting murals regardless, this period may just be a necessary reframing of my mural practice.
