By Hilary Nichols
Most of us here in Ann Arbor did not have any idea what to expect when the tall, thin man placed his ladder up York’s blank brick wall on May 20th. The artist known as Shrine is a painter, muralist, and sculptor, creating outdoor art installations all over the world for the last few decades. Originally from Pasadena, California, Brent Allen Spears, aka Shrine, has been an artist his whole life. At his grandmothers’ tables he was praised for his talents while everything else in his young world wasn’t so pretty—so he identified as an artist from a very early age. His colorful style and steady hand grew over time from realism to his current style of modern folk art mastery. Now his exaggerated, colorful, overlapping geometric designs stretch ten stories up in New York and wrap countless corner tattoo parlors and salons in Portland, San Francisco, Austin, LA, and throughout the festival circuit worldwide.
But what put him on the map as one of the truly great artists of our time is the more meaningful work that he has dedicated himself to lately. Beautiful offerings in conflict zones and refugee camps are the passion that has Shrine painting whole villages in Uganda, and a hospital in Tanzania, and a center for autistic adults in Kenya. He is ready and willing to collaborate with local artisans and everyday neighbors in areas that have no galleries. “Taking art somewhere that it has value, it is a different function. It is a personal preference, to choose to make art that will actually improve real lives.”
You can measure such actual impact by the number of people that gather at the Great Oven. While he was painting in Beirut, conflict broke out, leaving thousands in unstable conditions. Along with international chef James Gomez Thompson, Shrine painted and installed the initial Great Oven to fuel a common kitchen and the community that grew up around it. The ongoing Great Oven Project places communal ovens into refugee camps and conflict zones to provide sustainable food relief and creative community building with the great forces of food, music, and art. You can see Shrine’s cheerfully painted altar of an oven as it shines as a beacon of love on the Great Oven website.
These efforts not only add beauty where there is so much strife, but they leave this infectious discovery behind: that anyone and everyone can be an artist. “I just show people how I do it. It is simple, here are the tools and the time. Just getting that simple information out to everybody is the real gift in what I leave behind.”
In Tripoli, Lebanon, Shrine was invited to join courageous youth from two sides of a conflict as they finally abandoned hate and fear and picked up paint brushes, applying new hope and a pretty color palette to a set of stairs that divided them. «It is amazing what a common project can do.»
Shrine doesn’t take requests, and he doesn’t prepare beforehand. He arrives and surveys the scene to engage the vision as it comes. I met Shrine in 2005 when he returned from crafting trash temples in Bali on our common friend’s film project. He has been a friend and favorite artist since, but I was surprised when he responded favorably to my Instagram query so quickly. He found the few days to squeeze in the YORK commission in an instant. Between designing a five-story tower for Google and an industrial sculpture in Mexico, before a month in Lebanon, he agreed to a week in Ann Arbor. That first day, travelling through town, Shrine noted how much blue we wave, so his eye went the opposite direction to pink. No sketches or templates because that would take all the fun out of it. Making the art is his whole driving force, and he reserves that drive to inspire his 6 a.m. arrivals and long hours on the ladder in the hot sun. Eight gallons of the best paint later, he stands back to ponder the yellow, orange, and pink triangled pattern that came to life at his hand, and quickly began to cut in the scalloped edges of white along the stripes. “Some soft rounds, an organic element is called for to add some more gentle shapes for the play of pathos in this piece,” Shrine assessed.
He won’t be done until he’s totally content. Even if that means he will be painting in the dark. Shrine does intend for us to feel these patterns and colors and to imbibe on the delicious color palette as we take in food and drink. And in much the same way, we will ingest the impact of this bright addition to our favorite courtyard and be moved. There is so much glowing warmth and open heart on this wall, we can taste it as we relish in the worldly addition to our town. More Shrine to come. Stay tuned.
See Shrine’s new art at York at 1928 Packard Street in Ann Arbor. Learn more about Shrine on his Instagram.
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