Museum Graffiti

I finally got a chance to take a close look at this new artwork commissioned by the Mattatuck Museum. I had seen photos posted by the museum on Facebook, but seeing art in person is always better. This impressive graffiti was created by New Jersey artist Joe Iurato.

The image of the two police officers is based on a photograph from 1931, of Frank McHard and Bernie Burns wearing the new uniforms issued by the police department. The photograph is part of the museum's great collection of historic images of Waterbury.

The process for creating the graffiti image is similar to screen-printing. The artist builds up the image in layers of color. Each layer of color is added by spraying the paint through a stencil.

In some places, you can see hints of the process--marks that are obviously made by spray paint, and a smudge mark from where the stencil left a little extra paint.

The overall impact of the work is fantastic. Photo-realistic, larger than life paintings of Waterbury police officers from almost a century ago, standing guard on the side of the museum. I highly recommend stopping by to check it out. Since it's on the outside of the building, on Park Place, you can see it any time you want.