Our Region's Coolest Street Art
Police Substation at 1404 14th St. W., Bradenton
Several years ago, Realize Bradenton, a nonprofit created to revitalize the city, gathered a group of high school students and adults to brainstorm ideas about what Bradenton meant to them. The group compiled sketches and photographs and handed them off to artist Michael Parker, who created a mural in 2012 of two teens on the verge of adulthood, eager to explore the world.
Corner of Pineapple Avenue and Selby Lane, Sarasota
Eduardo Kobra, who broke a Guinness Book record for largest graffiti for his 3,000-square-meter mural at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, produced this piece on a wall in Burns Court in 2002. The art was part of his project Walls of Memory, in which each mural was a portal to a city of the past and an appeal to preserve history. This piece shows Sarasota's Main Street in the first half of the 20th century.
650 Central Ave., Sarasota
In 2016, Boston native Richie Brasil used aerosol paint cans and unusual pastels to create two murals on a retail building in the Rosemary District that tell the story of who was here first. Stretched across one wall of the building are Native Americans who settled along the Gulf coast of Florida. A mural on a second wall honors the African-American community that settled in this neighborhood in the 1800s.
Corner of 12th Street West and Third Avenue West, Bradenton
Bealls Department Store opened in 1915 in downtown Bradenton and is one of the longest-running family-owned and operated department stores in America. To commemorate its 100-year anniversary, Bealls commissioned a mural on a wall of its first store to honor the company’s roots and its commitment to the community.
City Parking Garage at 615 12th St. W., Bradenton
West Palm Beach artist Eduardo Mendieta created this mural in 2017 to show how Bradenton millennials envision the future of Bradenton. The mural, which climbs the outside of the stairwell, features a child with cupped hands holding a germinated seed with sprouting vines and swirling color to symbolize the community, its growth and the optimism for its future.
More than 130 works of public art are on display in the cities of Sarasota and Bradenton. Perhaps the most accessible: the growing number of murals painted on commercial buildings, most of them commissioned by building owners and nonprofits. Once viewed as vandalism, street art began gaining acceptance here a decade ago when its unconventional medium and message began bringing personality—and provocative cultural statements—to blank walls. “The traditional art world resides behind closed doors—in a museum, a gallery, a studio,” says street artist Anat Ronen, whose paintings are in Sarasota and in 10 other countries. “Street art is everywhere, for everybody to enjoy.” Take a walk through downtown Sarasota and Bradenton to enjoy these five murals.