San Francisco serial street artist Jeremy Novy has stenciled more massive carp onto SF walkways — and these new ones are the size of whales.
At this point, we might as well double as a fan account for SF-based muralist Jeremy Novy’s ever-growing catalog of work. Known for his stencil work — artworks that span the gamut of size and subject matter, though there’s a clear bend in queerness and marine life in his catalog — Novy has painted hundreds of koi fish across Northern California, many of which can be seen schooling on San Francisco sidewalks. (There are even some of these majestic carp painted in Guerneville — NorCal’s gay iteration of Palm Springs, if you will.)
In recent months, Novy’s otherwise life-sized carp (read: stencils that measure roughly three feet long or so) have taken on truly gargantuan proportions. Take for example painted koi fish that now circle an intersection on Slow Sanchez Street — each painted fish the size of an orca. They’re truly sights to behold; aerial shots taken by local landscape and architectural photographer Andrea Gaffney do, in fact, the enormity, scale, and execution of the seven “swimming” koi fish justice.
But as impressive as those two-dimensional freshwater fish are, they can’t hold an aquarium filter to the pair Novy recently just completed at Civic Center over the weekend.
These aren’t just orca-sized — we’d argue they’d rival the space taken up by a mature humpback whale.
“[A] full day of painting,” captions Novy on Instagram for a shared image showing what can only be described as a cetacean-sized koi fish, measuring about 70 ft long, painted in SF’s Civic Center. “A few scale dots left to paint. Will be starting the 2nd koi on the other side of the fountain next week.”
The behemoth carp fish is painted much like Novy’s other koi fish stencil, barring the skeletal ones he’s done for past Halloweens. Because of their size, onlookers can observe some of the more interesting painting techniques that give these fish depth… as if they’re both floating in a body of water and navigating their way through it. (The shadow tracing, for example, can be appreciated.)
The first of the two koi fish, which is a project funded and sponsored by the Bay Area-based arts community nonprofit Illuminate, finished Saturday… meaning that vendors participating in this past Sunday’s Heart of the City Farmer’s Market set up their stations atop the first finished koi fish.
The splash of color is a welcomed addition to the otherwise drab “concrete and grayness” common in urban areas, including SF’s Civic Center.
“Urban landscapes are filled with concrete and grayness, as adults we lose our imagination due to all the gray and beige, so bringing color and art into the world, it helps our brains to activate better,” Novy tells Illuminate. “Street art is really important for the community.”
And in a world adamant on pushing out creativity for productivity, street art exists as a critical reminder that our humanity isn’t tied to our abilities to produce, but rather our inherent capabilities to hold, foster, and experience wonder.
Novy’s mural is scheduled to be finished tomorrow, February 27th, and it will be available to view at all hours inside Civic Center’s Fulton Plaza.
Why not post photos of this?