In 1997, Lewis brought to fruition an idea he had for a painting, and it was done on a retaining wall outside the old location of St. Albert’s Art Beat Gallery. From a distance, it simply looked like a painted reproduction of Michelangelo’s “David,” but on closer inspection, revealed to be a mosaic of hundreds of tiny paintings, making up the larger image. This first project turned out to be the inception of something bigger… a process, repeated and refined over time, that has come to be known as Mural Mosaic. Future projects came to include the collaboration of other artists, and, eventually, the community, and necessitated the creation of the Mural Mosaic team, including fellow artist, Phil Alain, and Lewis’s brother and graphic designer, Paul, with Lewis as the key artist for the projects.
The process of creating a Mural Mosaic involves conceptualizing a large, mural sized image, and then dividing that image into many small squares to use as a guide for painting the smaller paintings that make up the mosaic. The idea is for each smaller painting to be a unique painting, in and of itself, that follows the basic layout and colour scheme of its designated guide square. Then, the small paintings are put together to reform the original image, as a large painted mosaic.
Contrary to what one might assume, the challenge isn’t in the smaller paintings not being exact enough representations of the guide squares, but the opposite. Lewis prefers the outcome when contributors don’t worry so much about the details. “The more you let go,” he says,” the better these murals end up looking.” Funding also presents an ongoing challenge but while the team is not always successful in securing sponsorship, this doesn’t mean the death of a project. Other funding sources include selling products related to their projects, including colouring books and prints of the mosaics and they have even resorted to crowd funding.
In 2004, the first collaborative mosaic project, “Heritage Fiddler” involved seventy artists from Phil Alain’s ‘Night of Artists’ in a 24 hour art marathon. Since then, the team has continued to create mural sized mosaics, including “Buffalo Twins” for the shared centennials of Alberta and Saskatchewan, which was unveiled for Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, and Kunamokst for the 2010 Olympics. “Earth’s Treasure Chest” raised over 45 thousand dollars for Canadian Parks and Wilderness. Mosaics have been commissioned outside Canada, including one in Utah depicting the entire history of the USA, and an international mosaic, involving fourteen countries, saw creation of “Le Cadeau Du Cheval – The Horse Gift.”
Mural Mosaic