Philadelphia is known for a lot of things (both good and bad) yet few outside of its limits know that Philly is also known for its mural arts.  In fact, Philadelphia has the most murals in the country.

This is all started back in 1984 when founder, Jane Golden, was requested by the Philadelphia Anti-Graffiti Network to help curb the epidemic of illegal graffiti writing.  Instead of berating the graffiti artists, the Mural Arts Program sought them out to collaborate on projects that would become much bigger, much more ambitious than anything, any one writer could accomplish on his/her own.   She gave them license to use the city as their canvas for works that would live forever. 

Art has always been a medium of expression for the people, by the people.  When institutions attempt to commoditize it, its beauty becomes distorted.  As a gallery, we understand the need to find balance between creativity and commerce.  But when the voice of the people becomes suppressed to serve a bureaucratic agenda, the resulting art becomes a force of revolution by the people. 

In the late 70s, Hip-Hop became that revolutionary force in music due to the radio’s suppression of the budding art form.  However, this cyclical “changing of the guards” gained widespread attention with the emergence of the 19th century art-movement known as Impressionism.