Last Friday, Joe Pagac painted a mural promoting Girl Talk’s upcoming show on the side of Eye Lounge during November’s First Friday festivities.
Pagac, a Tucson artist, has been painting performance murals on the side of Eye Lounge and the Rialto Theatre in Tucson for over a year. His previous works in Phoenix, in conjunction with Stateside Presents, include Monsters of Folk, The Album Leaf, RJD2, Sonic Youth, Once and The National.
The Girl Talk mural was originally meant to be a general advertisement for Stateside Presents, but Girl Talk’s tour announcement early Friday morning meant a change of plans for Pagac.
“Up until about an hour ago, I had no idea what I was going to paint on that wall. I just threw all my paint in my car and headed up because I’ve been busy and sometimes those end up coming out the best. The Sonic Youth one that I did on this same wall was the same way, I started figuring out what I was going to paint as I was painting it. It’s something where I’ve done it enough, so I’m confident that I can do it and it doesn’t stress me out anymore. When I was first doing it, it was really kind of a little scary to be painting in front of thousands of people and not know what I was painting and be trying to figure it out as I was going,” he said.
Pagac now enjoys painting in front of a crowd and hearing the audience’s feedback. When he painted the Monsters of Folk mural, he said it was a “…totally new concept. The wall is way bigger than anything I had ever painted before. The idea of having to paint anything in any sort of time limit, let alone an evening was kind of daunting to me so it was a bigger wall in a shorter time than I had ever tried to work before.”
Although he was happy with the end result, critics were not. “I ended up getting a lot of bad reviews and ‘stay out of Phoenixes’ and stuff like that in some of the local papers, and instead of being like ‘alright, I suck,’ I just decided next time I’m going to do it again but I’m going to make sure it’s something that whether you know I painted it in four hours or spent a week on it, you’re going to think, ‘wow, that’s a nice mural,’ and I did it, and the next month they said, ‘Phoenix asked for better and they got it, thanks Joe Pagac,’ and that really helped me launch forward.”
The Girl Talk mural can be seen at 419 East Roosevelt St. Phoenix, AZ 85004. Girl Talk will be headlining a show at the Marquee Theatre Wednesday, March 23, 2011. It’s an all ages event courtesy of Stateside Presents. Tickets are available through etix.com.
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