What used to be, at best, just another civic building and, at worst, an eyesore, was recently transformed into one of New Westminster's newest original art pieces.
The sewage pump house at 425 Brunette Ave. provided a blank canvas last month for Burnaby-based painter Steve Hornung to create a mural called Puzzled.
The colourful floor-to-ceiling wraparound painting is a montage of wild animals, with a jigsaw puzzle background and a boy shooting a puzzle piece with a slingshot.
"In a nutshell, without being too philosophical, it's basically just like I feel puzzled by life sometimes, and it can be confusing at times. We have to make the most of our pieces and opportunities that we're presented, so our life is our puzzle to sort of put together," Hornung explained.
For his creative product, which took about 10 days to complete, Hornung received a $5,000 commission from the city.
Greg Magirescu, manager of arts and cultural development for the city, said he has been getting a lot of positive feedback about the mural from members of the community.
"It's really cool because it really is part of the urban landscape," he said. "It actually now draws a little bit of attention to that building. I've heard from commuters who are in their cars getting out of New Westminster where it just seems to crawl along Brunette there, (that) people are enjoying looking at this mural. They're studying it. It gives them an opportunity to stop and absorb it, and residents love it because they've got something nice to look out onto."
The building sits at the edge of the busy roadway and had been a target for graffiti in the past, Magirescu said.
Hornung has been creating outdoor murals and billboards around the Lower Mainland for almost 20 years and, to date, none of his public paintings has been vandalized, according to the artist.
Magirescu said the city has made it a priority to focus on art rather than advertising on the existing infrastructure, such as electrical boxes and recycling containers.
Unlike other municipalities that have elected to go with advertising in these spaces, the New Westminster city council has agreed to reserve those and other city surfaces as canvases for both professional and local amateur artists, he said.
"We're the only city doing that, so I'm rather proud of that," he said. "And it's really helped forge a great relationship with New West artists now that we're embarking on a couple of new initiatives down the road with them. It's a win-win situation, really."
The city will continue to work with artists to add art to other civic structures in the future, Magirescu said.
"It's actually become a landmark," he said of Hornung's mural. "In time, it may become an icon in the neighbourhood there, and that draws attention and creates a sense of livability for people, and that certainly ties in with the city's vision for a livable city."
