Jason Maloney has just one hope for people strolling down this Huntington Beach alleyway: They smile.
Now greeting passersby are three larger murals, and one smaller painting, created by the colorful artist over the last month.
The splashes of fun scenes are meant to simply bring people joy, he said. “It’s a fun alley, people are really stoked.”
Maloney, who grew up in Upland but lived in Newport Beach for a decade before recently transplanting to Huntington Beach, was a Disney artist for 10 years and then spent another 10 years, until 2016, as art director for action sports brand Hurley, before bringing his pop-art style to Surf City.
He was commissioned by the owners of Jack’s Surf Shop to create the 20-by-25-foot-long murals in cutouts along the alley wall.
Each of the paintings was done by hand, simply using a bucket of paint and brushes, the 46-year-old artist said.
As a product of the ’80s generation, Maloney said he has long drawn his inspiration from the MTV-era filled with bright neon colors. He said he remembers being inspired by the artwork on the sides of arcade games and Tony Hawk skateboard decks and by music icon Madonna.
“It’s very playful. I have a very childlike personality when it comes to my art,” he said.
“I wanted to make everything over-sized, so it draws you in and makes you feel like a kid when you look at it, similar to what you feel like when you’re at Disney,” he said of the murals. “It triggers that childlike memory and makes an adult feel like a kid for 300 feet.”
The alleyway is a thoroughfare from a busy parking lot to Main Street.
“They are like big, giant coloring books,” he said. “There’s no deep, underlying meaning behind it … let’s just have fun. We need more of that, I think.”
Part of the fun he’s had is interacting with the passersby who stopped to chat about his art.
“I really love painting in front of people. It charges me up when people ask questions, I love interacting with the public,” he said. “I really enjoy the entertainment value of the art world. There’s a time to be quiet in your studio, but then interactive with the public. Meeting people the old-school way.”
Among Maloney’s favorites in the murals is a skateboarding bear about to do a face plant, its tooth falling out.
“I wasn’t a great skateboarder, I pushed with the wrong foot and fell a lot,” he said with a chuckle. “But I was a gifted artist.”
There’s also a red-and-yellow surfing shark, which one kid dubbed the “Pizza Shark” because it looks like a slice of pepperoni.
More and more public art pieces are gracing Surf City walls, adding colorful scenes to the beachside town. Artist and Huntington Beach surfer Melissa Murphy has painted several massive walls around town with marine landscapes in recent months.
“If you go down there, there’s at least three or four public murals of all different styles, which is great. They are so fun because they go around galleries and go directly to the people,” Maloney said.
“You just walk down the street and you see beautiful art,” he said. “There’s something for everyone. It’s kind of like a carnival of fun.”
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November 23, 2021 at 06:08AM
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Artist brings fun vibes to Surf City with colorful murals - OCRegister
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