Artist Rainbow, by North Beach, MD, artist Roz Racanello, is a collage of portraits that includes the street artist J.R. and the Mona Lisa peeking out from the corner of Bank Square Building and just visible from eastbound Great Mills Road.
This is the second professional mural St. Mary’s Community Development Corp. has installed in Lexington Park, MD. The new Artist Rainbow mural overlooks the alley off eastbound Great Mills Road between Amazing Nails 2 and Spa and the former Raley’s furniture store. The Development Corporation has dubbed this “Art Alley” to acknowledge its second public art installation: the first bank of “Wings Across Lexington Park,” a portrait-height installation of wings along the red brick wall flanking the sidewalk.
Artist Rainbow combines the faces of famous artists, speakers, poets, orators, a hip hop musician, a street artist, a Piscataway performing artist, and that very famous smiling portrait. Ms. Racanello, St. Mary’s CDC’s staff artist, was inspired to design the collage after overseeing the installation of the corporation’s first mural Lexington Park Alive!
“I wanted it to look like the people who live here,” said Ms. Racanello. “When we put up the first mural, every day we worked, people stopped by to say they liked it. It made them happy. People walking, people driving by and pulling in, bicyclists, all ages, all colors, students. I designed this to give back to all of those different people who also love art in their neighborhood”
“I designed the collage to show that art and artists know no cultural barriers,” she said.
For the third time, St. Mary’s County Arts Council provided support for more public art in Lexington Park, MD. With support from a grant from the council, a competition was held to select four additional Maryland artists to work with Ms. Racanello on Artist Rainbow. Selected were Kailee Findlay, Caitlin Jones, Jasper Lopez, and Katia Meisinger. all contributed to the installation of the design on the back wall of Work Space, a recently renovated series of furnished offices with shared conference and lobby space overlooking Gate 2 of the Naval Air Station.
Other supporters of the installation include Stevens Construction, St. Mary’s College of Maryland Professor of Art Carrie Patterson, and State Farm Insurance – Phil Riehl.
The blending rainbow of artists include: Piscataway-Conroy tribal singer/drummer Francis Grey, poet & activisit Maya Angelou; Mexican artist Frida Kahlo/African American child; Spanish artist Salvador Dali; the Mona Lisa/Asian eyes; French street artist J.R.; Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei, and Pulitzer prize winning musician Kendrick Lamar/Nobel Peace Prize winner Martin Luther King, Jr.
The CDC’s first collaboration with the Arts Council, Lexington Park Alive!, also included support from the Southern Maryland Heritage Area reflecting the historic nature of the design competition in 2017. Lyn Wescoe’s design was selected and the mural installed in the southwest quadrant of the South Shangri-La Drive/Willows Road intersection with Great Mills Road.
Questions about these projects or public art projects can be sent to execdirector@stmaryscdc.org or to leave a voice mail, call: 301-863-7700.