For the third year, artists visit South Bend to paint the town for Mural Mania

SOUTH BEND — The last time Oscar Joyo visited the South Bend Museum of Art, he competed in the annual Scholastic Art Awards show in 2011.

Now, he spent the last week painting a mural on the museum's loading dock as one of the seven artists in town for the third annual Mural Mania .

Joyo lived in South Bend for 10 years but currently lives in Chicago. While he's been painting at the museum for Mural Mania, friends, family and even old teachers have come to visit.

"It's a very enriching experience. … Just being back home and seeing how South Bend has changed," Joyo said.

One of the changes in South Bend witnessed by Alex Ann Allen, who also grew up in South Bend, is all the new murals that have been added. Allen said that five to six years ago, there weren't many murals in the city, but after this year's festival ends Julyy 7, 18 murals will have been added.

Allen said she attended her first mural festival in 2019, which gave her the idea to bring the event into South Bend. For three years, she has been organizing the event , which brings in artists from around the world.

Seeing the festival is something that has made Allen really proud.

" I feel proud to live in here, and I feel so much love," Allen said.

Several of the murals contain features added by the artists that pay tribute to South Bend.

Britt Johnson, a muralist from Austin, Texas paints portraits of locals in some of her murals. This year's mural is a portrait of Mandy Krause, who owns a bakery called Love and Macarons.

Johnson said she hopes that local residents feel a sense of joy when they see Krause's expression as they pass by.

Johnson enjoys how murals are all unique and different from each other.

Joyo's mural is an image he's had in his mind for awhile and he said it's a celebration of his cultural heritage. Joyo was born in Malawi.

Joyo said he has been an artist for as long as he can remember. He became a muralist for six years where he first painted indoor murals.

For outdoor murals, Joyo uses spray paint and usually only paints during the day for better visibility. When he chooses the colors for his murals, he tries to make them have an electric feel.

"The palette I've been doing recently has been relatively consistent with like a lot of purples, blues and pinks," Joyo said. "I always think there the power is very electric."

Although Nico Cathcart is originally from Toronto, Canada, her mural still has a few details specific to Indiana. Cathcart currently lives in Virginia and has been a professional muralist for 10 years. She met Allen at a mural festival in Tennessee, and Allen invited her to Mural Mania.

Cathcart's mural is part of her ongoing symbiotic mural series where she paints a skull, florals and a range of animals.

"It's just kind of the concept that we're all kind of tied together," Cathcart said. "The health of us is tied to the health of the environment around us."

She hopes that her mural will lead the viewer to think about the climate around them and how they're impacted.

"I feel like public art has got a responsibility to kind of talk about things that are important," Cathcart said. "So a lot of my stuff is kind of based in social justice or climate concerns."

Cathcart's mural will take her five days to paint because of the amount of details she incorporated. She uses the grid method for painting, which she considers to be a "traditional method." Several flowers are painted in the mural including peonies, Indiana's state flower.

When Allen was making deliveries to artists throughout mural mania, she saw a family looking at the murals. She said they just stopped for a moment.

"I just watched their eyes light up and they were five minutes behind me and then they'll go to the next one," Allen said. "So people are really just engaging, and that keeps a city moving and brings life into the city."

Allen said the murals can be used for a number of things in the community and can inspire events like mural walks. While the murals may not last forever, with most of them on average lasting 10 years, Allen said when that happens, artists can just paint over those murals.

"It just engages so many people and there's so many things murals can do," Allen said.

Taylor Barnes, who uses Taylord professionally, paints a lot of women and specifically women painters.

"I love being out in the world painting at large and bringing my art into different communities," Barnes said. "And also the connections I make with the people around town. I get to meet people from all walks of life."

In her mural, Barnes chose to paint one of her friends. She hopes the portrait will "grab people's attention."

A professional artist for 17 years and a muralist since 2019, Barnes said she likes to channel someone's essence when she's painting a portrait of them.

Murals, Joyo said, are a great cultural marker.

"I think what separates it from gallery work is that you only have a finite amount of time before that piece has to go somewhere else to a new owner," Joyo said. "Whatever murals are forever, and just like everyone in the world can see, you can see it at any time of day."

Mural Mania artists

■ Max Sansing from Chicago: Mural at Main and Colfax Garage

■ Taylord from Austin, Texas: Mural at Leighton Parking Garage

■ Oscar Joyo from Chicago: Mural at South Bend Museum of Art loading dock.

■ Cameron Moberg from San Francisco: Mural at the Monarch Building.

■ Brittney Johnson + Efren from Austin, Texas: Mural at the ZSTONE and Roselily building

■ Nico Cathcart from Richmond, Va.: Mural at the ZSTONE building.

Email Tribune staff writer Rose Androwich at randrowich@gannett.com .

This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: For the third year, artists visit South Bend to paint the town for Mural Mania