Chroma Zone Mural Artist 2024
“I paint colorful murals reminiscent of Saturday morning cartoons as a proxy world to explore wide ranging themes such as grief, mortality, and political upheaval. I believe a style wrapped in childhood nostalgia makes these topics more palatable. My work is a product of the American South and as such I strive to create a contemporary landscape both beautiful and troubled. My murals work as portals to a parallel landscape where the narratives can be seen with clarity and in contrast to the surrounding spaces.
I grew up in an “unincorporated census-designated area” of the Mississippi Gulf Coast. In short, art was not a career prospect. I moved out when I was sixteen and began an unlikely hike toward the arts, but I always wanted to belong with my family and the region where I’m from. Murals opened an unexpected channel for that. I like murals because it is construction; the same field my Dad worked. I could talk to my dad about job site estimates, scaffolding, rain delays, etc. It’s not just for him of course; I like the feeling of spending a day working on the wall and then coming home tired with plans for the next day tinkering in my head. I like construction.
Coming from a place nearly nonexistent on a map, it felt like I’d never be in the right room to make a real living from art. The market is so far away it can feel like there’s no path to get seen. Murals make you visible. The first time I saw street art while living in South Korea, it hit me how accessible it was for me as a viewer. I stopped applying to galleries and started painting on abandoned buildings with friends. I owe my career as it stands now to the democratizing nature of putting art in public spaces.”
Birdcap
Memphis, Tennessee
Michael Roy, a.k.a. Birdcap, grew up near the bayous of southern Mississippi, on America’s verdant “third coast”, a region battered by hurricanes and scarred by a violent, racist political history. Roy studied painting at Memphis College of Art but got his start as a muralist when he left the South and moved halfway across the world, where he became a part of the thriving street art scene in Seoul, South Korea. The character of “Birdcap” was born in South Korea. In the past decade, Birdcap’s career as a muralist has spanned continents, but the artist’s work is a product of the south, both a love letter to the region he calls home and a challenge to its problems. Birdcap works in a style equally steeped in Saturday morning cartoons and history paintings. He creates densely colored scenes that slide between references to Jim Henson and the Crossing of the Delaware. Using a vocabulary of fantastic shapes that make a Birdcap mural identifiable across the world, the artist takes up deeply personal subjects such as grief and loss, tackles political anxieties, and traverses a contemporary landscape both absurdly beautiful and troubled.
Connect
www.birdcap.store
@birdcap
About this Mural:
Flowers for the friends who picked me up. I’m doin good. Doing great. (How are you?) Currently, I’m traveling a lot, painting the lil things I want to paint, meeting nice people everywhere I go. I’ve got friends I love across the world and even though there’s not a lot of family left, if you add those friends, the list is deep. They answer my calls. They call back. The last few years were a little chaotic for sure…but things are good right now. I think it’s easier to write a lot when things are falling apart, but it’s important to count the wins. I want people to know the rotation gets there eventually. I’ve got genuinely good friends.
This mural depicts one character (top left) helping their friend (bottom right) up off of the ground. That’s what my friends did for me. So this is my chance to give them their flowers (sprinkled throughout). The phoenix (top middle) notoriously burns itself out and comes back from their own ashes. It’s a great sentiment. But the moments where I start back new almost always involve the outstretched arms of my friends. I Love y’all.
(This mural is dedicated to Sydney G James, who painted an incredible mural for me here in St Paul, to which I felt the need to return the gesture as best I could .)
More from this Artist:
Mural Title
Flowers for the Friends Who Picked Me Up
Chroma Zone, 2024
Mural Location
Security Building (West wall)
2395 University Ave W, Saint Paul 55114
Painting Dates
COMPLETED!
Image & Video Credit
Chroma Zone is grateful for the many professional photographers and videographers who have donated their time and talent to document Chroma Zone through the years. These include Jon Reynolds, Alex Olson, Ne Dah Ness Greene, Alex Prince and Wyatt Johnson.