Winnipeg’s 150th birthday cake with Graffiti Gallery

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In celebration of Winnipeg 150, Graffiti Art Programming has constructed a giant 8-foot tall cake sculpture for community members to decorate. We invite participants to reflect on what Winnipeg's 150th year means to them and what wishes they have for the city's upcoming years.

Links

• GAP website graffitigallery.ca

Organizer

Graffiti Gallery Art Programming

In June of 1998, Steve Wilson met a first year Fine Arts student named Pat Lazo in a small garage in Elmwood. Pat was answering an ad that Steve had placed in a local skateboard shop, looking for graffiti artists that would be willing to paint large conventional style wall murals for commercial clients, as well as spearhead a new graffiti-on-canvas art movement.

Eventually, 11 young graffiti artists joined Pat to work out of a makeshift studio in that same garage in Elmwood. They prepared for their first public showing of their graffiti-on-canvas and 3 months later, on the September long weekend, at the music festival at The Forks, they premiered the first ever graffiti style art exhibition. It was an astounding success. Not only did the studio sell 6 paintings, but the people that they met served as a foundation for a network of support that the gallery still enjoys today.

Following the success of the first exhibit, it was decided that there was not only interest in what was being done, but also a willing and supportive consumer market for this style of art. In January of 1999, the gallery moved to its current location at 109 Higgins Avenue. Later that year, in April, to a standing room only crowd, the Graffiti Gallery had its official grand opening.

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