Artist Emmanuel Jarus painting one of the largest murals in St. Pete

SHINE Mural Festival celebrates its decennial in St. Pete this year. Over the last decade, local and international artists have contributed large-scale murals that color the city’s walls, bolstering St. Pete’s reputation as a city of the arts. The festival has yielded over 160 public artworks, transforming the streets into an open-air gallery.

This year’s SHINE Mural Festival features the largest mural to date. Toronto-based artist Emmanuel Jarus is currently painting the Walker-Whitney building at 226 5th Ave. N. Spanning the entire 14-story building—approximately 180 feet in height and 60 feet in width—Jarus’s mural is the largest addition yet. A board committee representing the Walker-Whitney building selected Jarus after deliberating over numerous candidates.

For those familiar with Jarus’ work, his mural on the Walker-Whitney building may elicit a sense of familiarity. The mural impressionistically depicts a woman he’s painted before, most notably on a seaside building in France for the Festival Street Art de la ville de Boulogne-sur-Mer in 2022. Jarus, distancing himself from interviews to focus exclusively on completing his mural, leaves the audience to develop their own story about the figure’s reappearance.

From graffitiing on trains to painting a 17-story building

According to Jarus’ artist bio on SHINE’s website, “Drawing inspiration from the visual human experience, Jarus has spent the last decade collaborating with communities in Canada and around the world, creating large-scale representational work outdoors on buildings, trains, boats and rooftops, among other surfaces. His painting style, heavily influenced by the post-impressionistic period but with the use and reinvention of new materials commonly found in hardware shops, has earned him international acclaim as a contemporary muralist and figurative painter.”

Jarus only uses common bucket paint, brushes, and rollers to make his work, and his new mural in St. Pete is no exception. He managed to lay down the painting grid and general sketch just before evacuating due to Hurricane Milton. Fortunately, both the building and his sketch remained unharmed, and his progress continues in time for SHINE, which was rescheduled to November 8 – 17.

Jennee Priebe, Director of SHINE Mural Festival, shared that Jarus was first discovered because of graffiti art he created on the side of a train at age 19. In the 10 years since, he’s joined a global network of mural artists who travel the world, painting full-time. His trajectory is fitting: going from his first piece on a train to creating the largest mural in St. Pete, freighting a new style and color to the local art scene.