Category: Painting

When Brian Peterson first had the idea to paint Matt Faris’s portrait, his goal was small. He just wanted to hang the painting in his home in Santa Ana, California. “I thought there was beauty in his face, and in his struggle,” Peterson said about Faris, who is experiencing homelessness. But after painting Faris and seeing the impact it had on him, as well as other members in the community, a light bulb went off for Peterson.

That light bulb turned out to be the beginning of Faces of Santa Ana, the nonprofit Peterson co-founded with his wife, Vanessa, in which he paints portraits of people experiencing homelessness in Santa Ana. They then use a majority of the proceeds to create what they call a “love account” in order to assist the painting subjects with whatever they choose — food, clothing, hotel stays and art projects among them. Since the nonprofit’s inception in 2015, Peterson has painted 30 portraits and sold 21 of them; they sell for $2,500 each.

“A huge part of Faces of Santa Ana [is] really about dignifying those who have lost all dignity in themselves,” Peterson said. He added, “Along those lines…you’re also just, on a basic level, taking people who are sort of metaphorically invisible and making them visible in the most literal sense of the term — you’re turning them into art. You’re making them as visible as they can be.”

We’ve partnered with TIAA to tell Brian Peterson’s story as part of the TIAA Difference Maker 100, a program celebrating individuals in the nonprofit space making a difference. Check out the video above in which Peterson shares the origin story of Faces of Santa Ana, reveals a painting to one of his subjects for the first time and more.

All over the United States, people like Brian Peterson are working to make positive and lasting change in the lives of others. We’ve partnered with TIAA to celebrate its centennial — 100 years of helping people doing good do well — and to put the spotlight on visionaries whose inspirational work is shaping the next century. Learn more here: www.TIAAdifferencemaker100.org.

Street artists got both silly and serious at the second annual Cheltenham Paint Festival in southwest England last weekend.

Some used their murals to celebrate the 100-year anniversary of women gaining the right to vote in the United Kingdom, while others commented on climate change, the environment, consumerism and war.

One artist, Bristol-based John D’Oh, poked fun at President Donald Trump:

Minions, video game characters and superheroes also appeared in art form at some of the 29 host venues across the town. New York-based Beau Stanton was the lead artist.

“Cheltenham has a number of world-class festivals ― science, jazz, literature, music and horse racing, and I thought it was about time we had one celebrating art,” organizer Andrew Davies (aka Dice 67) told HuffPost.

“Artists are free to express themselves as they see fit,” he added. “My feeling is they produce their best work when unhampered by others expectations.”

Some 125 artists took part in this year’s festival, with preparations for the 2019 installment well under way. Check out the 2018 work below:

French artist Saype said his latest gigantic land painting is a “message of hope” for refugees.

Saype used biodegradable paints made from natural pigments to depict a little girl launching an origami boat into Switzerland’s Lake Geneva. His masterpiece takes up about 1.2 acres of lawn, and is best seen from the sky:

“The childish figure is a recurrent one in my work because I think it’s the future generations who will eventually take over,” Saype told the AFP news agency. “So, it’s important for them to be sensitive to these issues.”

The girl is called “Future” to symbolize future generations, he added.

Saype’s piece aims to support SOS Mediterranee, the maritime-humanitarian organization dedicated to rescuing migrants stranded on boats in the Mediterranean Sea.

The U.N. refugee agency said earlier this month that, in 2018 alone, more than 1,600 people had died or gone missing while attempting to reach western Europe from northern Africa and the Middle East by sea.

In July, Saype painted this similarly gigantic piece for the Eurockéennes de Belfort rock music festival in France:

He also created this biodegradable painting on the Chaux-de-Mont ski slope in Leysin, Switzerland, in 2016:

And here is how Saype paid tribute to the Tour de France in 2016: