The Side of the Sound Table

Photo by me, November 2013.

Murals are something Atlanta is blessed with thanks to organizations like Living Walls. You can even on the grayest of days find hope and energy in the colorful work of artists from all over the world that have been brought here to brighten our blank walls. I enjoy photographing them because it takes me to all parts of the city and corners I've never been to before. Street murals have the ability to draw us in, have us stand and contemplate them for awhile, evoke an emotion and satisfy us as other forms of artistic expression will do.

There's plenty to admire and consider on this wall. Photo by me, November 2013.

The murals on the side of the Sound Table can be seen coming east on Edgewood Avenue and north/south on Boulevard in the Old Fourth Ward. In some ways it is a bit hard to figure them out. First there is the advertisement for local artist Radcliffe Bailey which is the head on the left side coming through the pieces of wood and where the word 'High" is located. Second is the 2012 mural from Argentinian artist JAZ which is the two riders on horses that are seemingly mirrored and blending together. The third is the work of French artist Roti painted in 2013, which is the whale, the structures in gray and the playful hands pinching the head from the advertisement and the other holding an eye.

Cadavre Exquis or exquisite corpse. Photo by me, November 2013.

Roti had the chance to start with a blank wall for his work by covering over the existing murals but chose not to do so and took on the challenge of making his interact with the others. He decided his mural would be based on the parlour game Exquisite Corpse. The game is based on multiple players drawing a collage in turns overlapping one another on a sheet of paper folded in quarters. That game is also a derivation of the game known as Consequences which utilizes words instead of drawing. Roti's idea was genius in creating the wall that we see today which does resemble a collage created by multiple artists. His inspiration for using a whale was that it is the largest mammal and every year despite its travels it will return to the same spot. He calls the whale the mother and says that it supports everything.

You can read an interview with Roti and other Living Walls artists in this piece in Burnaway.