[NYguy]

https://bklyner.com/brooklyn-artist-...latbush-mural/

Brooklyn Artist Katie Merz Chosen To Create 80 Flatbush Mural





By Pamela Wong
September 22, 2017

Back in May, Alloy Development issued a call for submissions seeking an artist to create temporary large-scale murals on the exterior of its 80 Flatbush project. Earlier this month, the firm announced that Brooklyn artist Katie Merz was awarded the project.

Merz started work on 80 Flatbush (between State and Schermerhorn Streets) two weeks ago, covering the lower portion of the walls with her signature, bold, black-and-white graphics representing iconic images of Brooklyn’s past, present, and future.

The names of neighborhoods (Borough Park, Canarsie, Coney Island, Gowanus, Sheepshead Bay) and famous Brooklynites (Biggie Smalls, Foxy Brown, Mos Def, Spike Lee) are interspersed among basketball hoops, boomboxes, BAM, a Nathan’s hot dog, the Wonder Wheel, the Fort Greene monument, the 9th Street bridge, and the giant Goya can that used to be displayed on a billboard in Gowanus beside the BQE.

...“People are contributing ideas to the wall,” Merz told BKLYNER on Monday. “People are stopping by and being a part of my drawings.”

Her mural for 80 Flatbush is inspired by her surroundings as well as conversations she has with passersby, neighbors, and the staff at the NYC Human Resources Administration office who currently occupy the building.

“It’s a blast. I’m having so much fun it’s ridiculous,” she said. “I love the people in there [the employees in the building], they’re great. I’m taking their pictures. They’re giving me info about themselves that I’m putting up on the wall. They’re giving me copies of Brooklyn icons and emojis [that they want included]. Every time they come out, they have all these print-outs,” she says laughing.

http://www.brownstoner.com/brooklyn-...h-avenue-arts/