SHINE on the inside: Dali-inspired murals debut

The Dali Museum’s latest exhibit is a bold one, a fresh idea with no precedent: Thirteen muralists, all of them veterans of St. Petersburg’s 10-year-old SHINE Mural Festival, have been painting directly on the gallery walls.

Opening Saturday, Outside In: New Murals Inspired by Dali turns the museum’s 5,000-square-foot main gallery (the Hough Family Wing) into separate-but-themed street art canvases; each artist pointed their highly individualistic visions toward works inspired, in some way, by Salvador Dali’s supreme surrealistic sense.

Wednesday morning, several artists were still hard at work on their mural masterpieces, in preparation for the exhibit’s weekend debut.

Chad Mize

“This was a dream for me,” said Chad Mize, one of the founders of SHINE in 2014. “The first museum I really went to was the Dali, on a Manatee High School Art Club field trip in 1990, and I remember seeing The Halluciogenic Toreador for the first time.

“So there’s a lot of reference to that, and just how it sparked me to be an artist, seeing his work. It changed my life, in a way.”

Twelve Dali paintings are referenced in Mize’s pop-art mural, along with a depiction of the original Dali Museum (now part of the University of South Florida campus), the one he visited as a high schooler.

Mize still has his sketchbook, with his artistic depictions of the works that most impressed him that day. “Just the fact that I have this … it’s like a full-circle moment to now be in here, painting.”

A stroll through the gallery of oversized paintings is like a microcosm of the SHINE tour experience – albeit with air conditioning, and without auto exhaust fumes.

The variety is astonishing, as is the talent on display. Orlando’s Naomi Haverland has created an anamorphic image of Dali himself, while local artist Nicole Salgar’s painting, seemingly just a deeply hued and finely detailed depiction of a woman in repose, includes Dali’s not-of-this-world lobster phone and numerous other subtle references to the master’s works.

Marina Capdevila

From Catalan, Spain, Marina Capdevila’s mural depicts one of Dali’s favorite pastimes: The pre-lunch vermouth-with-olives ritual, painted in sunny springtime colors. “It’s a special Catalan tradition,” the artist explained. “In the Mediterranean, we like to sit around the table and eat and drink and talk.”

Muralist Palehorse is known for his intricate, highly stylized paintings that blend the iconography of Eastern mysticism with contemporary design.

Palehorse, aka Chris Parks, was another SHINE founder. “It’s beautiful painting inside here, with all these amazing artists,” he declared. “Really good energy. And I’ve always been a huge fan of Dali’s work, and having this museum here in my back yard for all these years has been a big influence on my work. So it’s definitely an honor.”

His mural, he explained, is an archetypal representation of Dali’s wife, Gala, as three Indian goddesses. “In paintings, Dali would represent her as a goddess, and talk about her as his muse,” Parks said. “Gala was hugely important in his career.

Palehorse

“I see her as this goddess that allowed him to be respected as a genus – rather than a crazy person. You need somebody behind the scenes, showing others the value of your work. She was a big backbone of him being able to do what he does.”

Fintan McGee

Jenee Priebe, the former director of SHINE (for its most recent seven years), was a consultant on the Outside In project, working closely with curator Allison McCarthy and others on the Dali Museum staff.

Priebe sees it as a new plateau. “To be invited into the Dali Museum as a street art festival, that’s significant,” she explained. “Not only for all these artists and their journeys, but for me to be able to be involved too. To see that the work we’ve put in over the last 10 years has in many ways culminated in this. It’s very exciting.”

BASK

Ales “BASK” Hostomsky – yet another SHINE originator – views Outside In as a sort of payback to one of his greatest inspirations.

“We immigrated here, from the Czech Republic, a year or two after the museum actually opened,” he said. “But then in the late ‘90s, when I was a troublemaking teenager, I did my community service at the old museum. For a full year, I spent my Sundays selling tickets at the ticket counter.

“It was a formative experience for me because when I got done with that year, I basically launched my art career.”

One of Dali’s gifts, BASK believes, was that of permission, of letting artists know there’s no “wrong” way to create.

“His art is so extreme,” the artist said, “So it becomes ‘if THIS is possible, I could certainly make an attempt at it.’ It’s quite the definition of ‘The sky’s the limit.’”

Other artists featured in Outside In: New Murals Inspired by Dali are Tes One, Miss Crit, Bakpak Durden, Shok-1, Lauren YS, Fintan McGee and Greg Mike.

 The exhibit opens Saturday and will run through Oct. 26, with a series of tours, lectures, workshops and other related events. Visit thedali.org for more information.

Nicole Salgar

Palehorse

BASK

Chad Mize and his 1990 sketchbook.

Haverland, left, Palehorse and Salgar.