By OLIVIA BERGMEIER
Salina Post
At The Salina Art Center Friday evening, artists from around the world gripped the mic with paint-stained hands as they answered audience questions about their various works of art.
For most of the week, this group of artists painted new murals around town as part of BOOM 2023. During the panel discussion, the muralists said that each mural includes a touch of their own personalities.
One Baltimore, MD-based artist, Chris Stain, puts a piece of his childhood in each composition he paints.
"My parents worked in factories, so the whole neighborhood that I grew up in was it just that," Stain said. "It comes out in my work when I see images of working-class people. That's what I want to be. I want to work hard like that. I want to put that kind of effort into the work I do for the unions that are working and, more so, for my work and my personal work."
BOOM! Salina 2023 featured seven artists worldwide, alongside Martha Cooper, a New York City-based photographer.
At the artists' panel discussion on Friday, the artists described the various modes that brought them to street art, varying from boredom to a need for artistic expression.
READ: 2023 Salina Street Art & Mural Festival
Add Fuel, or Portuguese artist Diogo Machado, began graffitiing after seeing photocopies of graffiti work from Germany and the United States, but eventually left street art behind for a career in graphic design.
"I have always been drawing, and I love drawing, and at one point, I got an invitation from my city," Machado said. "I had this big project that I was involved in, and it had a mural, and I thought this could translate into the work I was doing at the time as a designer and illustrator."
Machado said he grew up surrounded by Portuguese tiles and likes to use them in his work, utilizing stencils to spray paint patterns across large outdoor walls.
He then adds a new aspect, making the tiles look painted on paper and ripped to show the building underneath.
Pat Perry, an artist from Michigan, painted a mural with multiple paintings on Third and Ash Streets, wanting to leave a moment in time immortalized on the one-story wall.
"What do we want to leave to show people as a little reminder of what was going on at this moment?" Perry said. "I try to pick things that are from the Midwest. I also live in the Midwest, and I think there are many different motifs, imagery, and things that are missing. From the bigger lexicon of American Art. And so, I tried to pick those things and be thoughtful about the pictures."
The artists of BOOM! Salina 2023 included PichiAvo from Spain, Chris Stain from Baltimore, MD, Pat Perry from Detroit, MI, Add Fuel or Diogo Machado from Portugal, El Mac or Miles MacGregor from L.A., Mad C or Claudio Walde from Germany and Queen Adrea or Andrea von Bujdoss from New York City.