PAINTING THE RIVER : A Trinity Trails Mural Gallery

#2-Texas Trail Buds

ARTIST: Chris Bingham HOMETOWN: Mesquite, TX

Look closely as you walk along the banks of the Trinity River and you might see all types of herons: Little Blue, Yellow-Crowned Night, or even Black-Crowned. 

In Chris Bingham’s mural “Trinity Trail Buds,” you see something very rare: An Origami heron.  

The yellow-and-grey heron at the center of his mural - it’s surrounded by white, origami flowers, maybe Dogwoods - reflects the precision Bingham undertakes with each of his murals.  

“I’m a big proponent of letting people take the art into their own minds and letting them enjoy the beauty of it. If they enjoy it hopefully it sparks a memory or an emotion,” Bingham said. 

An Oak Cliff native and a Mesquite high school art teacher, Bingham calls his ever-evolving style “nostalgic realism,” which he has said allows him to blend past experience with emotion. For him, the origami artwork is an homage to his grandmother from Yokohama, Japan. 

Someone who always keeps his hands busy creating - he sketches while being interviewed - Bingham studied graphic design at Texas State University and the University of North Texas before earning a degree in drawing and painting from the University of Texas at Arlington. 

So, it comes as no surprise that there’s a careful use of color and design in his work. Bingham likes to mix different ideas by using a strong pattern intertwined with representations of reality. In “Trinity Trail Buds,” the bird and flowers may be origami, but there’s a realistic Ladybug. 

“I hope to place the viewer in a familiar time or place, churn a memory that may have been long forgotten, or just make you remember why it is you love your life,” Bingham said.  

#3-Sharing Spaces

ARTIST: Audie Pope HOMETOWN: Fort Worth, TX

You need to go beneath the surface to capture the spirit of Audie Pope’s work. 

In her mural for the Trinity Trail gallery, “Sharing Spaces,” Pope decided to focus on the wildlife that primarily lives in the Trinity River, and not just along its banks. 

“When I go to the lake I hope a fish doesn’t swim past my leg,” Pope said. “But then I thought about it and decided that we should treat them as our neighbors.” 

“I looked at the surrounding wildlife near and in the river and I decided to concentrate on the animals below the surface,” she said. 

Tapping into her love for children’s book illustrations, Pope used that style to depict Red-eared slider turtles, Channel catfish, Rainbow trout and Largemouth bass. 

There’s also an American bullfrog swimming by. 

And while those legs dangling in the river, by the way, aren’t hers, Pope’s joy for life definitely is included in all of her work. 

Pope grew up in Fort Worth, graduated from Fort Worth Christian School in North Richland Hills, and studied painting and graphic design at Abilene Christian University. 

Besides painting murals in kid’s rooms, schools and restaurants, she’s also provided the illustrations for a children’s book. But this is the biggest mural Pope has ever done. 

“While walking down the trails or exploring the river, we often forget we aren’t the only ones occupying the space,” Pope said. 

“When approaching this project, I wanted to find a way to illustrate our interaction with nature. After looking over the resources provided, I noticed ‘community’ was a recurring theme. 

“And what is community if not cohabitation; sharing spaces,” Pope said. 

#4-Monarch

ARTIST: Shelly Denning HOMETOWN: Denton, TX

There’s something haunting, yet hopeful, about Shelly Denning’s mural “Monarch.” 

There’s a group of deer; the doe hovering over its fawn; the buck standing nearby. Both the mother’s and father’s ears are perked up, showing they are on the alert for any danger that may come from man’s crumbling, abandoned structure near where they are grazing. Through gaps in the walls you can see green fields and cloudy blue skies. On the buck’s antlers is a monarch butterfly that's recently left its cocoon. 

That sanguine feeling is exactly what Denning is looking for. 

“The building is abandoned, or after man doesn’t exist. But in my mind, whatever has happened, nature is continuing to thrive and do better without us,” Denning said. “The monarch is a sign of regeneration, rebirth, renewal. It’s a warning, but it’s hopeful. If we start taking care of ourselves we can live with nature, but if we don’t, it will go on without us.”  

Denning, an Arlington native who now lives in Denton, said her artistic style has evolved over the years. Always drawn to being an artist - her homework papers as a kid often contained more doodles than actual work - Denning has worked as a bartender, an actress and a makeup artist. 

While her early work tended to be darker and more fantastic, Denning said she’s now, as a full-time artist, creating artwork that is more realistic and with a political statement. (The medicine wheel painted on one wall is an homage to Native Americans, as is the ‘574’ scribbled on one wall for the number of current federally-recognized tribes in the United States.) 

Denning, who painted the mural with help of her son, Jack Pinder, said the monarch butterfly was added after she discovered a chrysalis on the structure. She changed her design, moving the stag to allow the butterfly to develop. She added the adult butterfly to her mural. 

 “My piece is more about the harm humans have done to the planet and how animals will go on living without us long after we’ve killed ourselves off,” Denning said. 

#5-Resilient Life

ARTIST: James Moore HOMETOWN: Dallas, TX

Being resilient is a common thread in J.D. Moore’s art. 

So it’s not surprising that the Dallas-based artist and tattooist intertwined the enduring influence of the Trinity River, the Trumpet Vine and Black women together as subjects in his mural. 

“It’s a piece that is dedicated to nature and the idea of being resilient in life ... the life of the flower being resilient ... the life of a Black woman being resilient,” Moore said. 

Moore, a Rowlett High School graduate, has been an artist since 2013. While he’s not classically-trained, Moore has studied overseas, including a month-long residency in Tuscany on fresco painting. He said he’s been influenced by Renaissance sculptors and painters. 

For “Resilient Life,” Moore said he was particularly inspired by Italian sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini, who is known for showing emotion, movement and drama in his work. 

Using his sister Jayla as a model for Mother Nature and as a representation of all Black women, Moore decided to wrap her in rippling burgundy robes while standing in water. Flowing from her breasts are golden rays of sunshine that transform into the frames of a stained-glass window. 

Stained glass window frames are recurrent themes in Moore’s work, too. Leaves wrap around the woman’s head like a halo. 

“I grew up around a religious center and I was inspired by the Renaissance so the stained glass (reflects) the regalness and spiritual nature of the piece,” Moore said. 

Moore picked the Trumpet Vine to wrap around the stained-glass frame because it is a perennial that survives in harsh conditions only to bloom and thrive in the Spring. Some may call it invasive, but it doesn’t take away from “its strong and hardy nature,” Moore said. 

In the end, Moore wants the mural to change people’s attitudes toward Black women. 

“Like the perennial Trumpet Vine, they thrive in the spring and survive harsh winters. It is my hope that over time this depiction will influence the audience to see and ultimately treat Black women with the reverence they deserve,” Moore said. 

# 6-Music on the Trinity

ARTIST: Jana Renee HOMETOWN: Fort Worth, TX

Stroll down by the Trinity River one day and you actually might catch Jana Renee seeking inspiration and solace. Long before being picked as an artist for the Trinity Trail gallery, she would go there, sometimes with her sister, sometimes alone, to play music or just to think. 

“The river is one of the things that tipped the scales for me and got me to liking Fort Worth,” said Renee, who moved to Texas from New York as a child. “The Trinity River was a beautiful part of Fort Worth that helped me to see and understand the beauty of Texas.”  

Born in Ithaca, Renee moved to Saginaw in 1997. Answering the call of her artistic nature - she comes by it honest; her grandmother did watercolor landscapes and her great aunt oil paintings - Renee earned an associate’s degree in art at Tarrant County College before earning a bachelor’s of fine arts degree on a scholarship at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. 

Renee has done about 15 other murals. Because of their scale, the murals are less formal than her oil paintings, but Renee allows classic art to still influence her work.  

“Music on the Trinity,” is inspired by the romantically detailed painting “The Charmer,” by John William Waterhouse. In Renee’s painting a young, Southern woman playing a guitar - a cowboy hat hanging on her back - stands in for Waterhouse’s Greek-styled character picking a lyre. 

The setting for the mural is a collection of Renee’s favorite spots along the river; the rocks from a low-water dam and the foliage from a little park near University Drive.  

“I wanted to create a piece that communicates the peaceful feeling I get on the river …,” Renee said. “My hope is that the image I created brings a peaceful and serene feeling when people interact with it and that it will bring joy to passersby.” 

“The day I finished it, I sat down and played my guitar and christened it.”  

#7-Backyard Princesses

ARTIST: Anya Boz HOMETOWN: Brooklyn, NY

Anya Boz believes in the world of magic. She also believes in the natural world. 

So, her reverence for both infuses her art, whether it be the murals she paints, the illustrations she sketches, or the fantastical animal art dolls, or “room guardians,” that she makes. 

Both worlds are on display in her work for the Trinity Trail gallery, “Backyard Princesses,” in which the Gulf Coast Toad, the Little Blue Heron and the Dog-Day Cicada dance in celebration. 

“My work is heavily inspired by nature and the idea of adding a bit of magic to unexpected places,” said Boz. “I seek extraordinary in the ordinary as a reminder that wonders will reveal themselves to those who are willing to look.” 

Boz knows the Trinity River and biked along its trails. She grew up in Keller, worked in a Colleyville bakery and lived in Fort Worth before moving to Brooklyn in 2020. She is not classically trained - Boz did take art at Keller High School - and relies on her “natural ability.” 

“I was not one of the coolest kids in high school. I was ‘Anya the artist kid,’” said Boz, who was known as Anya Bosworth at that time. “I was friends with the cool and uncool kids.” 

“Backyard Princesses” reflects a toned-down version of Boz’s style. In her other work, where she anthropomorphizes animals - many of them have hands, threatening stares and strange proportions - to the point she admits that they can be “disturbing” and “creepy.” 

But in this, her eighth mural, Boz’s Trinity River inhabitants take on a non-confrontational, spiritual nature that makes you ask if they are intelligent spirits as they spin to the glory of life and the coming of each season: The toad is Summer; the cicada Spring; the possum Fall; the heron winter. The swirling ribbon nearby indicates the season. 

“I like stepping on the borderline of something that is familiar from something that is natural to something spiritual,” Boz said. “They come into my head and I put them out into our world.” 

#8-Backyard Princesses

ARTIST: Anya Boz HOMETOWN: Brooklyn, NY

#9-Cloud 9

ARTIST: Jimmy Jenkins HOMETOWN: Fort Worth, TX

In “Cloud 9” Jimmy Jenkins’ Trinity Trail mural, a Great blue heron is launching itself from Trinity River banks, barely skimming over the cattails and reeds where a paddling of ducks is hiding. 

It is a tranquil, natural scene that is supposed to catch your attention, but not distract too much. 

“People go to the river to escape and meditate,” Jenkins said. “I’m responsible for keeping their tranquility in their mind, to pursue the peacefulness in their mind as they run the trail.” 

It’s a subtle message, but for Jenkins, art has always been his way to communicate without using words. 

Diagnosed as dyslexic as a young child, pigeonholed as a special-ed kid, Jenkins would rush through his school work in class so he could get to the part of the day where he could draw. There, Jenkins found comfort communicating with the stroke of a pen, but in a different way. 

“I can say exactly what I want without words,” Jenkins said. 

Raised in the Fort Worth area - he went to grade school in North Richland Hills and high school in Keller - he overcame the stigma of his learning disability to graduate from the Texas State Technical School in Waco with degrees in marketing and advertising. 

He later found success co-owning and running Fort Worth Screen Printing for 20 years, overseeing 45 employees in creating marketing materials for corporate clients. 

But the self-taught artist has been on his own Cloud 9 after deciding to earn a living as an artist. In five years, he’s done 14 murals - including the famous “Monkey Lisa” in the nearby River District - and he was the first artist asked to contribute to what would become the Trinity Trail gallery. 

“I hope people see the freedom in nature, that they will free their minds and enjoy the elements,” Jenkins said. “The earth is precise and there are so few things you can trust, but the natural world you always can.”  

#10-Giving and Receiving

ARTIST: Adrian Brooks HOMETOWN: Wimberly, TX

The moon looms through much of Adrian Brooks' work. 

Drawn in phases, the moon - sometimes crescent, sometimes full - adds a luminescence to his art as he tries to create another world that includes bird-head figures instead of people.  

Often there are waves of color, what Brooks refers to as “cosmic waves.” 

“I’m trying to create these otherworldly backdrops …” Brooks said. “I’m trying to make something that is all inclusive, something that people can appreciate and make them stop and think for a minute.” 

Originally from Houston, Brooks studied at the San Francisco Art Institute and is greatly influenced by what is called the “Mission School” art movement of the late 1980s and early 1990s that started in the Bay area. These artists draw their inspiration from the urban landscape, weaving in elements of graffiti and folk art and craft. 

In “Giving and Receiving” Brooks builds on his trademark “visionary language.” 

On the riverfront panel is the moon and a sky full of stars hanging over two bird-headed figures exchanging gifts - the male figure holds an apple; the female presents him with a bowl. Seeming to grow from the ground are colorful cosmic waves that wrap around one side of the structure. 

The bird-head representative figures, which Brooks said are unconsciously influenced by Native American art, are involved in the “simple act of giving and receiving and sharing.” 

Brooks sees his Trinity Trails piece as part of a bigger vision. 

“My primary intention is to show universal themes of love, loss and redemption - subjects that transcend race, creed; worlds too far away to resemble one place; and sacred rituals that could be part of any culture,” Brooks said.  

#11 Cowboy Punk 2077

ARTIST: John Worley HOMETOWN: West Hollywood, CA

John Worley’s cowboy is not riding off into the sunset. He's riding into the future. 

Worley, who earned his spurs working in the Fort Worth art scene, said his mural for the Trinity Trail gallery, “Cowboy Punk 2077,” honors Cowtown’s past while anticipating its future. 

He said Fort Worth is moving away from where cattle were king to a city where technology, or digital dogies, are being herded.  

“I have a general interest in cowboy culture and how that represents Fort Worth,” said Worley, who grew up in White Settlement and Aledo. “I like Fort Worth and the culture that is there, but it’s coming into a new era. It’s not a typical cowboy town anymore.” 

For Worley, the use of technology and its impact on society is a recurring theme in his work. A former art teacher, Worley describes his style as “technological glitch-impressionism, “which refers to the pointillistic nature of pixels on a computer screen and features heavily in the effects of his work. 

Worley, who has a Bachelor in Fine Arts from Texas Tech, where he also earned a Master of Art Education degree, said his major influences are Felipe Pantone, Mr. Aryz and Olafur Eliasson who experiment with creating art on a large scale and continually reference technology and color and how they change the way one perceives space. 

In “Cowboy Punk 2077,” Worley and a friend posed as cowboys in a duel to get dynamic poses, which Worley then edited in Photoshop and other software to get glitch effects. With the help of two other artists, Worley used spray paint to apply the design to the Trinity flood gate. 

“I chose the cowboy because they were the vanguards of the future, the ones living on the edge, taming the land before civilization overtook everything,” Worley said. 

“I like the idea of the cowboy riding off into the future.” 

#11-The Panther

ARTIST: Rojografito HOMETOWN: Fort Worth, TX

Status: Completed

#13-The Birds

ARTIST: Nolan Muller HOMETOWN: Plano, TX

#-14- Selah

ARTIST: Joshua West HOMETOWN: Azle, TX

Multi-colored clouds soar overhead, sending a warning that something momentous or calamitous is about to happen. Standing vigil below are white-tailed deer with piercing stares, a Red-shouldered hawk perched on the buck’s haunches, making for an unlikely alliance. Scrawled in the ground cover beneath the Maximilian sunflowers and the Englemann’s thistle is the haunting message: “How rare and beautiful it truly is that we exist.” 

There is a lot to absorb in Joshua West’s bigger-than-life mural “Selah” for the Trinity Trail gallery. Even the Hebrew word selah in the title, which comes from Psalms, commands the viewer to pause and think and reflect on the world and the art before them. 

“We’re all stuck on this rock spinning around the sun and it’s a fragile place to be, so we need to take care of each other,” said West. 

The stunning, colorful painting reflects West’s long journey to becoming an artist. The son of a saddle maker, West grew up in Center, Texas, and flirted with the idea of a career as an architect and a social worker before earning his Master’s in Fine Arts in Studio Arts at the University of North Texas. West’s real-life experiences add legitimacy to the images he makes. 

In “Selah,” West said he wanted to paint something beautiful “but not a pretty empty thing like a vase of flowers.” Each native flora and fauna were picked carefully. 

The thistle is included because it is colorful, hardy and represents Everyman. The yellow-breasted Meadowlark is there because it “makes this beautiful noise” no matter whether it is flying or perched. 

The Scissor-tailed flycatcher is depicted because this “crazily” territorial bird will chase off other, larger birds despite its diminutive size. “It is small but fierce,” West said. 

The mammoth bones on the structure’s base, located closer to the river, are hints of our ancient past and, again, just how delicate the balance of life can be. 

““You can be here and not be here,” West said. “We should be taking care of our space because it is what is taking care of us and keeping us all alive. And it’s extremely fragile.”

#15- Keep Floating On

ARTIST: Jason Eatherly Hometown: Austin, TX

Jason Eatherly believes in going with the flow. 

Whether he’s doing a mural on a building, painting a landscape on canvas or decorating a motorcycle gas tank, he lets his art take him where he needs to go. 

It’s in that spirit he created his Trinity Trails mural, “Keep Floating On.” 

There are just wavy lines representing the Trinity River, but in the foreground are more realistic depictions of a butterfly and two flowers - the Pink Lady, and Yellow Bitterweed. 

“I was inspired by the natural flow and beauty of the Trinity River,” Eatherly said. “Taking time from our busy schedules to enjoy and take in the effortless landscape.” 

Eatherly’s life has a certain flow to it, too. After growing up in Wichita, Kansas, where he started hanging out with “like-minded” people, including a high school teacher and airbrush artist who taught him how to paint gas tanks on motorcycles. He got “engulfed” in graffiti and street art. 

He moved to Dallas with about 60 bucks in his pocket and sold a painting for $600 that “bought him some hotel time.” Eventually he ended up in Austin and became a part of its artists’ community. It was there that he built a wall in his backyard to practice spray painting. He’s done about 300 murals while also building custom chopper motorcycles. 

Inspired by artists Keith Haring, John-Michel Basquiat and Shepard Fairey, Eatherly said he made “Keep Floating On” more “painterly” and less like graffiti. It’s a mixture of abstract and realism, he said. “I think overall a lot of people can relate to it.” 

“The inventive side of my work helps motivate me to continue creating without being held down by one aspect of art: The freedom is what keeps me going,” Eatherly said

#16-The Cardinal

ARTIST: Selena Mize HOMETOWN: Wichita Falls, TX

#25-Trinity Trout

ARTIST: Mike Tabor HOMETOWN: Granbury, TX

#24-Recess

ARTIST: Robert Allen Burns HOMETOWN: Memphis, TN

Floating islands. Flying turtles. A monster-size heron being ridden by a little girl. Fanciful, free-standing waterfalls. All of these are a part of the fantasy world created by artist Robert Burns for his Trinity Trails gallery piece, “Recess.” 

Burns, an illustrator from Memphis, invented this dreamlike world to encourage viewers to feel a spirit of exploration and appreciation of their everyday environment. People tend to categorize things to help them navigate the world, robbing them of the opportunity to feel joy, he said.  

“Let your imagination go! It is sort of an invitation to look at the area around them and re-contextualize their environment into something more fantastic,” Burns said. “It encourages them to be more meditative about the environment they are in.”  

Trained in sequential art at the Memphis College of Art, Burns is inspired by comic book artists and illustrators, especially Sergio Toppi and Tomer Hanuka. He grew up reading dark, adult-themed comics like those in the DC Vertigo universe. 

But in “Recess” Burns takes a more light-hearted approach to creating a community of kids playing around the river during time out. (It’s a more complicated version of the playful world depicted by his Memphis colleague Zach Kremer for his Trinity Trail mural “Bulldog Rodeo.”

There’s a Tom Sawyer-like boy wearing a floppy hat while fishing. Two girls are climbing off the back of a huge, flying turtle. Then there’s the girl - her hair flapping in the wind - as she holds onto the head of a gargantuan, flying heron. All of them are enjoying the river, and the day. 

The animals he creates are larger than life, but not as interesting as the real thing, he said. 

“Trinity Trails is already like this fantasy world if we would just pay attention. With my mural I want to help that process along and show some perspective so that they might view something that you would categorize and set aside,” Burns said.

#21- River Owls

ARTIST: Anat Ronen HOMETOWN: Houston, TX

Anat Ronen isn’t sure where her art comes from, but sometimes it pops into her head at 4 a.m. while in bed, with her cats all around her, or while she’s stuck in Houston traffic in the middle of nothing and everything, going somewhere but getting nowhere. She’s inspired by nothing, and then again, by everything.

“It has to come from within me. It bypasses my brain. It’s weird,” said Ronen, a vibrant, unpretentious, 50-year-old, self-taught artist. “But I started so late in life, it all has been building up in me. … The images just pop into my head.”

Ronen’s Trinity Trail mural, “River Owls,” is a perfect example. When she saw the two round structures, she was asked to paint she thought - tree trunks! And who nests in tree trunks but owls, squirrels, raccoons and woodpeckers. Then, in her “impressionistic realism” style, Ronen used everyday house paint to create the critters until they seemed to be virtually poking their heads out to view passersby.

“They are looking at us, and we are looking at them,” Ronen said of her mural. “And hopefully we live in harmony, a symbiotic life, with all of the creatures because we’re all going to be gone in a minute.”

Ronen creates with a sense of urgency. A native of Israel, she decided to become a professional artist 12 years ago when she needed a “special ability” that would allow her to stay in the United States on a visa with her family. An art school reject with no diploma of any kind, Ronen turned a hobby into a career.

“What started out as a desperate act to stay here worked out. It was this or nothing,” Ronen laughed. “I still find it hard to call myself an artist.”

Clearly others have no problem calling her that. Ronen has been commissioned to do hundreds of murals, whether it be portraits of neighborhood children, rows of gigantic jars of candy, giant tiger eyes or a 40-foot armadillo. Some of her murals are done in a 3D style, allowing viewers to be a part of the canvas.

“I just create and have that sense of when to stop,” Ronen said. “I think it comes from not being formally trained. I have two brains in my head. One is a regular person and the other is a crazy artist.”

#17

ARTIST: Saxon Lynn Arts

#28 Wild Trinity

ARTIST: Anthony Padilla HOMETOWN: Ridgewood, NY

Drink in the deep, rich, sensual colors in Anthony Padilla’s “Wild Trinity” painting. 

The dark, twisting tree trunk. The vibrant green foliage. Stark white hibiscus and bold yellow and pink lilies hang nearby. Perched on a limb, its neck twisted just so, is a Snowy egret.  

“I like the contrast with the light-colored skies. In the darkness is an eeriness. Like a densely packed forest that is a little scary, but also captivating,” Padilla said. 

“There’s something that draws you in.” 

It probably comes as no surprise that Padilla draws part of his inspiration from artists like Georgia O’Keefe and Henri Rousseau, who mastered turning raw nature into high art. 

Padilla, who grew up in east Dallas before moving to New York, is self-taught, although he comes from a family of painters. Although they painted houses, not art, he joked. 

In Dallas, the Trinity River has a reputation as a trashy ditch, although there are efforts to bring it back. He appreciates what’s been done to clean up the Trinity as it winds through Fort Worth. 

“It looked like an ecosystem that is thriving,” Padilla said. 

His work for the Trinity Trail gallery mirrors his earlier work of dense flower petals and foliage. Padilla describes his work as “lush, vibrant and encompassing.” It’s also been said that his paintings explore “the natural elements of our planet as an exercise in understanding elegance.” 

Padilla studied the river’s ecosystem before attempting this mural, but the idea of adding the hibiscus came after he found some growing near the train tracks nearby. And while one of his paintings typically take months to create, his multi-sided mural for the gallery took about 10 days. 

Still, he’s happy with his submission. 

“Wild Trinity. That’s what the Trinity is. It winds through the city but it’s still partially wild - without the human touch. It would be that way if we were here or not.” 

#29A-Bulldog Rodeo

ARTIST: Qwynto HOMETOWN: Memphis, TN

Imagine this. 

It’s a cool Saturday morning along the Trinity River and a bunch of kids are pretending to be cowboys; the bikes under their butts are horses; the family bulldog is the steer they are trying to rope. In their minds, townsfolks fear the banana cum six shooter protruding from their pockets. 

You can hear them Saturday laugh until the end of the day. 

This is the kind of emotion artist Zach Kremer is looking for in his mural “Bulldog Rodeo.” 

“It is a quirky play on a Texas theme, kids playing on bikes and trying to lasso a large bulldog,” Kremer said, “kids playing with what is available and using their imagination to create games.” 

Kremer, trained at the Massachusetts College of Art, said he tries to explore the interaction of people and their environment by capturing quiet, ordinary moments in his artwork. An illustrator, he’s already done about 10 murals in Memphis. This is his first work outside of Tennessee. 

Inspired by the Polish mural artists Etam cru - famous in Europe for their building-size colorful murals that are rich in humor and sarcasm - Kremer said his art reads like a story. 

“It wasn’t harder doing the mural, having to work four sides at once was different,” Kremer said of his Trinity Trail artwork, in which he uses his trademark, prismatic palette. 

“It’s more of a whimsical outlook on things …” Kremer said. 

On the riverside of his Trinity Trails mural are three kids riding their bikes, cowboy hats flapping in the wind. One grasps a banana; another holds a rope. On one side panel a girl stands with her dog. One opposite end, an exhausted bulldog lies in the grass, a bird sitting on his head.  

On the back wall are the kids’ butts in their bike seats. Their hands are grabbing the handlebars. 

All of it telling a story of kids getting lost in the moment on a Saturday morning.

#29B

ARTIST: Murray Miller HOMETOWN: Fort Worth, TX

#30A-Alive and Kicking

ARTIST: Gabriel Prusmack HOMETOWN: Galveston, TX

If Gabriel Prusmack could whisper into the ear of someone standing in front of one of his pieces of his work he would simply say: “Be free.” It’s not surprising that his hashtag is #befree. 

“That’s it. That is what my work is about. Be free,” Prusmack said. “You get the full effect of life when you have that in you. God gives that to you. Christ gives you that. He’s given it to me.” 

Prusmack might also add “Love Big,” to the mottos of his life. The Galveston native’s brightly- colored murals, including the one for the Trinity Trail gallery, “Nature is Design,” matches his joy for life with its bright ribbons of pink, orange over a bluish-green background. 

“I get inspiration from nature, seeing the patterns and colors in nature and it causes it to come alive in my head,” Prusmack said. “We need to walk the world and be blown away by natural color, and be inspired by nature.” 

Mostly self-taught, Prusmack started doing graffiti art when he was 15. He studied graphic design in college, but found it to be too boring. Still, what he did learn influences his work. His murals and studio work look like something you’d see in the glossy pages of a magazine. 

Prusmack said he’s done over 100 murals and 500 paintings. Many of his works include the stripes of bright color (“It’s like a child who scribbles. It’s a freedom line.”) and a circle where something, like the detail of a frog’s leg, is dissected. (“That is showing transparency through design work.”) 

But there is always an exuberance reflected in his work, and his life. It’s probably best captured in the video of Prusmack in his trademark three-piece, pink “action-figure suit.” He wore it standing on top of a Galveston Island Causeway column that features one of his murals. 

“Be free. Be inspired. And that’s it,” Prusmack says at the end of the video. 

#30B-Wildflower Country

ARTIST: SM Sanz HOMETOWN: Dallas, TX