CUBED
ARTISTS REVITALIZE DOWNTOWN MURALS by Gina Castro | photos by Garrett Hallbauer It’s no secret that the CUBED murals raised the bar of public art in Pensacola. The murals quickly became a popular spot for taking photos, and it was featured as one of Downtown Crowd’s Instagrammable locations in 2018. Since 2017, the CUBED murals have been repainted by local artists each year. The pandemic caused Pensacola Museum of Art to put this tradition on hold in 2020. Hurricane Sally also damaged the murals. The lone surviving mural after the hurricane is Ophelia, painted by Krista Bennett. PMA Director, Nicholas Croghan explained that since the PMA wasn’t sure when they’d be able to feature another set of new murals, they added an enlarged photo from the Antarctica Seasons of Water and Ice show to one side of the cubes. The show’s photographs were taken by UWF biology professor Dr. Wade Jeffrey and will be featured at the museum until April 4. The PMA also hopes to cover one side of a cube with a map of the historic trust. Fortunately, the PMA was able to bring back a fresh set of murals in March. The PMA selected five new murals from local artists. STOA Architects sponsored each artist. “We really tried to find a good balance between different types of work. So the artists that were selected are going to be doing paintings that range from kind of more impressionistic landscapes, photorealistic portraits, some more kind of street art graffiti style, all the way to kind of a fun, more cartoony like illustration,” Croghan said back in February. The five new murals are now finished and ready for viewing. Downtown Crowd spoke with the artists behind each mural.
14 | DOWNTOWNCROWD.COM
