Page 320 - YGARTUA: Magnum Opus - volume three
P. 320
Artist Paul Ygartua created the main wall of world. Ygartua worked several months to
Surrey’s most prominent mural with a single complete the mural, at the time considered the
brush, one with three inches of bristle. By the world’s largest painted freehand by one person,
end, it was about a half inch,” Ygartua recalled on a “canvas” measuring 390 feet by 24.
of the tool, well used in his work to paint the “I spent the first month or so, a few weeks, just
31 faces on two exterior walls of Beachcomber drawing it,” recalled the Vancouver-based
Hot Tubs’ building in Newton.
“I even have a photograph of me
holding the brush at the end,” the
muralist added. “We even thought of
going to the paint company, showing
them the brush saying, ‘This would
be great advertising for you.”
Full of famous faces, the giant mural can’t be artist in a phone call. “I didn’t put any color in
missed on the corner of 132 Street and Comber until a couple of months later, simply because
Way. School kids and business groups come to I had to go to Europe for an exhibition. We
view it on tours, and others just stand in awe. had to leave, so when we came back I started
“(The) painting is here for all to admire and painting them. The first face that was finished
enjoy,” business owner Keith Scott has said, was Chief Dan George, and then I worked
“but most of all, to be inspired and challenged along the wall that way, you know.”
by the accomplishments and dreams of these
famous faces. We can all learn from their This is the largest mural of its kind in the
achievements, and from their mistakes.” world. Commissioned by Keith and Judy
Scott for the new millennium in the year 2000,
Scott commissioned the colorful mural in 2000 it was subsequently repainted exactly for a
as a millennium project saluting a constellation second time, in the summer of 2012. The
of “legends” including Princess Diana, Walt artist, Paul Ygartua, is a master in portraiture
Disney, Martin Luther King Jr., Terry Fox, with work featured around the world.
Billie Jean King and other trailblazers of the
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