Derek Mehaffey, a.k.a. Troy Lovegates, a.k.a. OTHER, is an internationally renowned artist who started graffiti writing in Toronto in 1988. He and an old friend known only as Labrona have painted 16 portraits of east-end residents on 16 pillars in Underpass Park over the past weeks, reflecting on how the “times done changed.” Underpass Park is located between Cherry Street and Bayview Avenue, under the Eastern Avenue and Richmond/Adelaide overpasses.

More than an underpass

The mural project is part of StreetARToronto (StART), a city initiative that treats streets as vital public space. The organization has a mandate to transform underpasses into “safe, walkable and beautiful landmarks.” Underpass Park was the first of its kind in Toronto, built below an overpass above the West Don Lands in 2012.

Holding up the pillars

For this project, Troy Lovegates and Labrona were invited to continue a project they worked on through StART last year. Each pillar depicts a single resident of the neighbourhood, each “holding up” the masses travelling on the road obliviously above them. “They are the pillars of this bridge … the pillars of community holding up the crazy Toronto commute,” Troy Lovegates told the Star. “It is amazing all the life that happens on one city block … all the stories and struggles … I wish I could keep painting everyone.”

Channelling Gord Downie

“I stole this lady’s soul, but it reminds me of the guy from The Tragically Hip,” laughed the artist. Lovegates approaches people in the neighbourhood and asks to take their photos, which he then uses to paint a surreal and vivid likeness. “I like really old, weathered-looking souls, but I can’t fall too deep into that. So I (painted) some kids and tried some new stuff.”

Local babies represent

According to artistic legend, when Troy Lovegates was just a baby he made his mother’s jaw drop by announcing, “I was an artist in my last life and I am going to be one in this life, too.” Today, the 44-year-old is a new father himself and has come a long way since he first began creating oil stick characters on the sides of train cars. His pieces and shows have appeared Taipei, Tokyo, Paris, Dublin, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Austin, Detroit, Montreal, Barcelona, Lima and many other cities around the world.

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16 people, 16 pillars

“I took two days on this one because I wanted to get him down perfectly,” the artist said of the middle-aged man depicted in a motorized wheelchair with a furry companion. “The more it started to be rendered, the more excited he was. Sometimes they come back and say, ‘What did you do to me?’”

Labrona lends a hand

Troy Lovegates met Labrona in Ottawa in Grade 4, where the friends traded hockey cards. Eventually, hockey was replaced by skateboarding and art. “Back then, all the skaters and graffiti artists were kind of outcasts,” Labrona explained from his dolly. “It wasn’t cool like it is now… But the more murals, the better: public art is good no matter what.”

The artists are present

The friends have until Oct. 1 to finish the mural and they invite Torontonians to come by and take a look. “I think (murals) are a new thing that’s getting bigger in the last few years here,” Troy Lovegates said of the burgeoning scene for public art. “Murals are trendy worldwide right now, so I can see why it’s happening in Toronto.”