Check Out This Cool New Mural in Mount Pleasant

World-renowned urban artist Okuda San Miguel finally has a piece on Canadian soil (and it’s right here in Vancouver!).

A first-time visitor to Vancouver would typically drop their luggage and head straight for one of our many tourist attractions. But for urban artist Okuda San Miguel, he arrived to create an entirely new attraction of his own. His latest work of art, Canada Secret Mountains, was unveiled in Mount Pleasant last month (his first mural on Canadian soil) and we’re pretty excited about it.Born in Santander, Spain, the 36-year-old began painting in 1996, transforming abandoned factories and railway tracks, but it’s his iconic street art that has taken him around the world to cities like New York, London, Paris and Berlin. Some of his most famous projects have seen him paint a fountain in the United States and transform an abandoned church into a beautiful skatepark in Spain. San Miguel glances over his work at an abandoned church in Spain. San Miguel’s “Metamorphosys of a Star;” the mural was on display at the 2013 Bonaroo music festival.His new mural, a collaboration with Vancouver’s PortLiving and Art Rapture, pays tribute to the West Coast by incorporating coastal animals and the natural landscape in an eye-catching piece done in San Miguel’s signature geometric style. The concept was first conceived when PortLiving’s CEO Tobi Reyes shared ideas of cultivating community through artwork—a sentiment that San Miguel also shares. For Reyes, it was about “supporting urban art,” relating its importance to urban development and livability. After that—it was simply waiting for the paint to dry. San Miguel’s Mount Pleasant mural.Drawing inspiration from B.C.’s water, weather and mountains, “all components of the landscape have come into play,” says San Miguel; his desire was to portray West Coast wildlife and to combine that with inspiration from his past travelling experiences. For San Miguel, the West Coast resembles a place “where nature has the true opportunity to be nature,” and he wanted to express the abundance of natural beauty in B.C. It’s also the only mural he’s ever created that features animals interacting with other animals (rather than humans). With the dark and rainy months upon us, San Miguel’s brightly coloured, multi-dimensional art is sure to bring positivity and light to the neighbourhood.

Okuda San Miguel’s latest work was unveiled on September 29, 2017 and can be seen at 325 West 4th.