The New Muralists of MacMillan

The trap sheds at MacMillan Pier are bright with eight newly installed murals. They’re a Provincetown Public Arts Foundation project that Executive Director Samuel Tager hopes will happen every year.

The artists had no restrictions on the images they produced. For most of them, the location and the large scale, provided an opportunity to experiment with new imagery and techniques. For many of the artists, working on aluminum and at such a large scale was new territory. Naya Bricher, Jerome Greene, and James Everett Stanley are all oil painters who typically work on more modest-size surfaces. They executed their murals over two weeks in studios at the Fine Arts Work Center, where Greene and Bricher currently work and where Stanley was a fellow and is a current member of the board.

Bricher had never worked at this scale before, but her technique of projecting images onto surfaces suited the project. She used a color-matching service to find colors that matched her study. Her painting — featuring desserts, an oversize rose, and an idyllic scene of Herring Cove — captures the pleasure-seeking of Provincetown in the summer.

Greene’s mural depicts Captain Jack’s Wharf on Provincetown’s West End, a subject he has painted before from direct observation. Here, in place of a singular scene, Greene interrupts the image with 10 drawings that appear like spreads from his sketchbook. He made the drawings of musicians, muses, and mentors with paint markers, a new material for him. The composition integrates his drawing and painting practice and reflects both Provincetown’s landscape and its community of creative people.

Stanley also explores personal connection in his mural, Sisters. In the image, his two daughters kneel at the base of a dune looking out to sea, which Stanley paints as a collage-like amalgamation of different times of day and weather.

To read the full article in The Provincetown Independent, visit here.