DAM Award 2018: Best Muralist
Whether on our downtown Square or alongside a residential street, Denton is a pretty picture when it comes to its many murals. The DAM Awards nominees for Best Muralist have covered the town in all kinds of colors and motifs. From beautiful pieces on our restaurants to our salons, our parks to our windows, these are the muralists who dedicated their talents to our Denton interior.
This art collective includes Melanie Little Gomez, Sue Little and Des Smith. Whether limited or expansive, this collective works an array of styles and themes into their mural work. Juicy Pig hosts their “Forgotten Future” mural, a lovely blend of scenes chock full of vintage characters with futuristic themes. The collective, which created several Sarah Jaffe and Robert Gomez album covers, brings the ability to deliver a powerful, succinct message to their LSA mural, “Guild of Endangered Species.”
I feel as though I looked up one day and Dan Black’s “Band on the Run” was completed and on the side of Andy’s and Paschall, looking like a natural part of the edifice. The depiction of a musician couple fleeing against a desert background is a captivating mix of large swatches of bold color and intricate attention to detail that make the scene jump out. The video of the mural in the making is well worth a watch. His vivid colors and his blend of geometry and realistic style can be seen in Denton (check out Bullseye Bike Shop, Oak St. Drafthouse, Cocktail Parlor) and around the country.
Lunt is the mastermind behind some of Denton’s most colorful displays, from the ever-whimsical scenes at Atomic Candy to the funky chalk lettering on The Bearded Lady’s traveling barber shop. Many may be surprised to know a lot of the little things you see around town were created by Lunt. His sign work is textbook perfection and then some, incorporating crisp fonts with his own aesthetic. Denton County Brewing Company’s still-fresh coat of paint came from Lunt, as did the new Cartwright’s Cafe and several walls and windows in between.
I personally see a Mancini most days when I walk to work, on the corner of Parkway and Locust. It’s a standalone wall, with a hand holding a vacuum hose—to honor the vacuum cleaner store just behind the wall—sucking up a colorful shower of Mancini’s abstract tags splayed on the leftward expanse of the surface. This combination of bold coverage and pockets of space brings an added spontaneity to his own brand of pop art.
Sykes’ murals bring pop surrealism to some of Denton’s most visited surfaces. His newly completed mural on Lucky Locks Beauty Bar is a conglomerate of majestic creatures, resplendent hair tools, and mix-matched patterns and shapes. Sykes is also responsible for the mural work inside of Andy’s Bar and a large exposition of flora and fauna commissioned by Keep Denton Beautiful at Sherman and Bell.
Header image courtesy of Dan Black
Header image layout designed by Christopher Rodgers
Click above to vote now!