Share
I was honored to be asked to Bisbee, Arizona to be part of the Artemizia Foundation by creating two permanent murals. I am very impressed by how vast and diverse the collection is there and the generous humanity within all of the work. One of the things that I love about street art is that it’s shared generously with the public, so that spirit seems to be imbued in this collection.
“Nadya Power & Equality”
My new murals at Artemizia Foundation were inspired by talking to Sloane Bouchever, the director and founder of the museum, about our shared philosophies. The idea of peace and equality, empowering female artists are some of the themes that resonated. There are many female artists represented in this collection, so I chose to do a portrait of Nadya Tolokonnikova from Pussy Riot, who is a close friend and someone that I admire very much for her creativity, her activism, her courage, and her use of every tool at her disposal to push for things to be more just and more fair.
“Cultivate Peace”
The other mural uses a woman from an image I created called “Welcome Visitor” that’s about welcoming immigrants. The subject of this mural looks very meditative and also within that mural configuration is a smaller piece of a hand holding up a flower. I use flowers a lot as symbols of health, rebirth, possibility, and harmony. And of course with the peace mural, there are some symbols that I think are easy for people to recognize like the dove, there are additional floral patterns, things that I think suggest or evoke harmony.
You can also check out the video below to see how Shepard created these new murals at AF and learn about his process and purpose with his art.
(Photos by Jonathan Furlong)
