Dan & Luis Oyster Bar – Iconography Street Art Collaboration

Working with Dan & Louis Oyster Bar and three local artists to help transform their outdoor space during the pandemic closings was a humbling and satisfying experience. While many were staying home during the pandemic, our company decided to take to the streets, masked up and install artwork for the local community.

For this mural we reached out to the owners of long-standing Portland staple Dan & Luis Oyster Bar located near the famous VooDoo Doughnuts for a public-facing street art walk. The restaurant’s windows and doors were boarded up for safety protocols and were in desperate need of an aesthetical facelift. We contacted local artists that were up for the challenge and managed all logistical needs with the city and building owner.

This particular mural consisted of 18 long and skinny windows which made for a unique layout for an artistic installation. We curated a well known illustrative artist in town renowned for their iconic collage imagery and dreamy color palettes. The artist’s aesthetic is influenced by graffiti and tattoo culture and likes working with visual iconography that would fit the narrow windows. The iconic images painted for the restaurant reflect on feelings of luck, positive change, beauty and strength. They included images of a candle, ladder, roller skates, chains, lightbulb, cherries, peace sign, an oyster pearl, dice and more.

The restaurant owners loved the artist’s that we curated for the project and appreciated our art consulting advice. They were so pleased with the art direction for the mural, they inquired about having artists create individual small canvases of similar content for their employees as a token of gratitude for their loyalty during the pandemic closings.

This street art collaboration was part of the Together We Grow PDX Community Art Project located across downtown Portland, Oregon.

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