The world renowned and prolific Victoria-based mural artist Archer has painted a new piece in the city before departing indefinitely to paint murals across the world.
Archer’s latest mural is one that is close to his heart, and takes up a whole wall outside the Mustard Seed’s Queens Avenue location.
He says this one feels special to him because a long time ago, he required their services and their community helped him during a difficult time.
“When it comes down to it, the Mustard Seed used to help me back in the 80s when I got custody of my daughter—I was a single dad,” Archer told Victoria Buzz.
“So they’re kind of family down here.”
They approached Archer when requisitioning a mural and told him they wouldn’t have anyone else do it, and he says he was quick to agree to the job.
Archer then came up with some design concepts that encapsulate what the Mustard Seed means to him and the community who require their services.
“Something that depicted love, and something that included different ethnicities, to make it all come together,” he explained.
He ended up painting several people’s hands all holding a heart which is yellow in the centre to represent the Mustard Seed, but gradients out to a red hue on the heart’s border to show the range of love and support the organization provides.
“It just sort of came together as I was working on it,” he said.
“But it’s difficult when you’re doing nine foot fingers and thumbs up-close—to get the anatomy right.”
The mural took him six days in total.
Some of his other pieces in Victoria people might recognize are all of the Marylin Monroes on the pink walls of Floyd’s, the big mural on Burnside Road depicting a girl with a sunflower, and close to Victoria, he did the Takaya memorial out on Discovery Island.
This is just a small sample of his work though, as Archer says he has done over 11,000 murals in his 40 years of painting and doesn’t plan on stopping any time soon.
“I can’t stop—I get the shakes if I’m not painting,” he laughed.
He also has been hired to paint murals at an elephant sanctuary in Thailand, a windmill farm in England and several projects out in Grand Forks, BC to paint an entire plane among other pieces.
In addition to these mural projects, Archer has a book coming out soon as well as a documentary about his life and work.
