A guide to Jersey's most memorable murals

Liz Dennerlein | Asbury Park Press

Show Caption Hide Caption An inside look at Detour Gallery Detour Gallery in Red Bank shows us their favorite pieces.

As the sun began to rise, Adrienne Wheeler had already been painting for eight hours.

She was working on an 18-foot tall and 500-foot wide mural on a barren Amtrak retention wall along McCarter Highway in Newark. The rumbling of the train could be heard overhead.

"You're very aware of where you are when you're painting on the wall and a train starts to approach," Wheeler said. "I mean that vibration just goes through your whole body from your hand right up your arm."

Wheeler was one of 18 artists commissioned by the Newark Downtown District to create a 1.39-mile mural, approximately the size of 25 football fields, in the city last May. The mural titled, "Portraits" is the longest on the East Coast, and the country's second longest.

The mural is part of the Gateways to Newark project, which is the first of many more attempts to beautify entry ways into Newark through public art and landscaping.

Murals have been popping up all around the Garden State — they're used as a way to brighten up a city, to beautify neglected areas, and to provide accessible art to the local community.

Here are our favorite murals throughout New Jersey:

Newark

Wheeler said the rhythm of the city changes in the wee hours of the night.

She's born and raised in Newark, but she's hardly seen her home between the hours of 9 p.m. and 5 a.m. — the hours the 18 artists were allotted to complete the 85,000-square-foot mural. A lane along McCarter Highway was closed, and the artists had eight days to finish the project.

Rebecca Pauline Jampol was hired by downtown Newark to curate the project. She co-curated with artist Lunar New Year.

Jampol is a local gallery owner, who's been working in the city for the past 12 years. She said about 60 percent of the artists were locals, while the other 40 percent were nationally and internationally acclaimed artists.

"It's important to shed light on the artists we have here," Jampol said. "We have so many brilliant artists who are Newark residents. If there's a mural going up in the city, they should be a part of it."

Wheeler was one of those chosen artists. The inspiration behind her mural all started with her mother's eight-grade graduation dress from 1942, which she found as a child while exploring her mom's cedar chest.

For her, the dress represents her mother's first achievement. Her mother, who is 89 now, went on to receive two degrees.

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Her education is due in part to her grandmother's decision to flee the Jim Crow South, Wheeler said, and migrate up north to Newark. Many African Americans were leaving to start new lives up north, and her mother, who left at the age of 8, eight, was part of the second wave of migraters.

"The dress doesn't just represent my mother, it also represents my grandmother as well because her decision to move here created a better opportunity for my mother, for my sister, for me. It allowed us to create a better opportunity for our children."

The mural features 42 of the dresses lined up next to one another, like a paper doll dress.

While from far away, the dress appears identical, but when you take a second look, each dress is different.

"The wall is not flat," Wheeler said. "It's an old wall — there's just stone and brick that will jut out. It was very difficult to paint. When you view it up close, each dress has its own personality and shape and movement."

Other murals include Akintola Hanif's "Invest in Our Youth" photograph series. His mural sends a message that goes beyond the city.

"My work is not about Newark," Hanif said. "It's always been about the sociopolitical climate and the injustices that I see all around me as a result of that. This same thing is happening in cities across the country and around the world."

For Jampol, Newark has always been a beautiful and inviting space for creatives.

She said Newark has given many opportunities to women-owned and minority-owned creative spaces.

"It's a very exciting time in the city," Jampol said. "There are art enthusiasts who are now making the trip to Newark. Every city goes through its ups and downs. It's basically a circle. Right now, we're in a place where a lot of the stigma is kind of evaporating and we're able to move forward."

Jersey City

In 2013, the Jersey City Mural Arts Program, which is funded by a Clean Communities Grant, was initiated.

Brooke Hansson said the program was established as an anti graffiti and anti littering campaign.

Since 2013, Hansson said the city has created over 95 murals.

"The architecture (in Jersey City) is unique, we have varying neighborhoods," Hansson said. "We have this amazing diversity, and we're able to celebrate that and depict that in our murals. Many are often telling the story of our various ethnic pockets."

Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop said Jersey City has such a vibrant arts community.

"Urban areas, like Jersey City, have a lot of hard surfaces," Fulop said. "The walls and concrete create an opportunity for street artists — they're essentially canvases. I think Jersey City has been one of the best comeback stories in regards to urban revitalization."

Hansson said one of her favorites is a mural completed by local Fermin Mendoza. It's located on Route 440 and portrays the Pulaski Skyway, the bridge that leads into Jersey City. The mural also features the silhouette of a women overlooking the view.

The space was formerly an inactive basketball court that became a site where dumping and graffiti became common.

"He worked on the project in tandem with the community that was reactivating the court. While he was measuring the wall, a young boy came up to him and said, 'What are you painting?' The young boy asked, 'Can you put my mother up there?' "

Mendoza then took a picture of his mother and superimposed it on the mural.

"That is one of my favorites because it really shows that murals come to life when there's community engagement."

She added that Jersey City has a relationship with the court system. When individuals are arrested for graffiti, they receive a mandated community service to help with the mural program.

"They remove graffiti, prep the wall, and they meet with professional artists who may have started out as taggers too," Hansson said. "We're teaching them that there's a legitimate way for them to paint the city."

Asbury Park

It's hard not to notice the changes Asbury Park has undergone the past few years.

Just last year, 12 artist — six local, and the other six hailing from different parts of the world, created murals on the walls of Sunset Pavilion on the boardwalk north of Convention Hall.

The murals are a part of the Wooden Walls SeaChange AP Project, which has been in the works for years.

Jenn Hampton, the gallerista of Parlor Gallery on Cookman Avenue in Asbury Park, is the curator behind the Wooden Walls Project. She partnered with Madison Marquette to create to bring the artwork to the city. The project started two years ago.

"The idea is to have a living, breathing gallery outdoors for people to engage in," Hampton said. "A lot of people don't feel comfortable going into galleries. People are still totally afraid. That's sad to me because people miss an experience. They don't know how transformative (art) can be."

Finding the right artists for the project is just one of the many struggles of curating a project this big. She has to find artists who are not only talented, but who can also paint on wood and a large canvas.

Other issues arise, such as pairing the right murals next to one another so they don't look crazy.

Some artists have hailed from different parts of the world, including Los Angeles, London and Brazil.

"It's good for us as a community to embrace these artists," Hampton said. "They come here, they discover Asbury Park, they see how vibrant and lovely it is, and they fall in love with the place. It creates this grassroots engagement outside of our bubble. They helped put Asbury Park on the map for the arts."

Hampton loves sitting on the boardwalk and people watching.

"I just (sit) there for hours and say, 'Oh my god look how many people are enjoying this,' " Hampton said. "So many people say, 'Well I'm not really an art person.' Then you watch them in from of the murals and they're picking their favorites, they're taking pictures in front of them, they're becoming a part of this process."



