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Expanding beyond his series of mini murals, which often depict imaginary creatures doing unexpected things, Lexington artist Graham Allen recently worked with his new company SQUARE-PEGS to complete this mural of songwriter Tom Waits’ face, on the exterior of the Paris, Kentucky-based brewery Rooster Brewing. Photo furnished
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You may have noticed them painted on walls around town in recent years: curious, whimsical little creatures stenciled on the exterior walls of local businesses, and even on a handful of Lexington residences. With their simple silhouettes and unexpected hybrid details – a squirrel with a hang glider, for example, playing on the concept of “flying squirrel” – these “cute little animals with an attitude” beg their viewers to summon childhood creativity and imagination. The mini murals are the brainchildren and creation of Graham Allen, an artist and graphic designer who has been working locally for almost 18 years, and are designed to not only pique curiosity and childlike engagement among passersby, but also to generate business and interest toward local stores.
Allen says Lexington’s increasing recent interest in murals inspired the project, but he wanted a different twist. While the artist has collaborated with the PRHBTN, the organization behind many of Lexington’s high-profile public murals, and has even donated a portion of proceeds to the effort, his simple, small-scale murals contrast with the larger murals around town. The idea, Allen says, is to provide a unique pop of interest to the walls of small local businesses that makes people stop, look and think.
“I wanted to get more involved in the community and provide something affordable and smaller scale that people can follow through Lexington while supporting local businesses,” he said.
The public murals are scattered across Lexington at 14 well-traveled locations, including The Morris Book Shop, Middle Fork Restaurant, Cha Cha’s Salon, Smiley Pete Publishing (this magazine’s parent company) and Third Street Stuff Coffee Shop. Allen’s approach to the murals is largely informed by location and organic, pre-existing surroundings – for example, the chainsaw-wielding beaver on the exterior wall of Cha Cha’s Salon, at the corner of South Upper and Cedar streets, was inspired in part by the lopsided telephone pole on that corner, the beaver appearing ready to get to work as soon as the pole falls. The hungry ants painted along the exterior wall of Middle Fork Restaurant march in formation with forks and knives, ready to eat some delicious food.
Driven by his background in marketing and graphic design as much as fine art, Allen wants his ongoing mini-mural project to have a multi-faceted impact, beyond simply painting a cool picture or even giving a local store character.
“The public supports local business, but then the business supports local art by paying for the mural — while giving back to the public by giving them something to look at,” he said. “It’s a full circle. Everybody wins.”
Allen operates as a solo act for certain projects, such as the mini murals, but earlier this year he helped launch the company SQUAREPEGS, which finished a large-scale mural of musician Tom Waits’ face on the exterior of the Paris, Kentucky-based brewery Rooster Brew last month. The company is predominantly run by Allen with help from Geoff Murphy and Josh Penrose, the owners of a separate entity called Fowl County, which helps local artists of all ages display their work publicly. Acting more commercially, SQUAREPEGS focuses on creating an artistic expression of companies and their logos. Partnering mostly with local businesses, the company also has worked with Mirror Twin Brewing and Rolling Oven Pizza, the new brewery and eatery that opened on National Avenue in September, to create logos for the sister businesses.
Since starting the mini-mural series in October 2015, Allen says he has every interest in a second series, which will focus more on the creatures’ “stories” and take influence from the imaginations of children and their own quirky stories – indeed, Allen has drawn inspiration from his own 5-year-old son, who helped conceptualize some of the creatures for the forthcoming series.
The artist also encourages his adult audiences to tap into their own creativity to decipher his art.
“It’s easy to come up with something when it’s laid right out in front of you — I like to be less direct with my art,” Allen said. “I want people to use their imaginations.”