01/30/2023
Bay Area, Filipino American Artists Dee Jae Pa'este and Mel Vera Cruz were selected to transform San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Gardens with “Celebration Gateways”. These Expansive Murals Will Enliven Barren Walls at 4th Street Adjacent to the New Yerba Buena/Moscone Transit Station. The project is a partnership between Yerba Buena Gardens Conservancy and SFMTA, funded by a Caltrans Clean California grant. One mural will replace blank concrete along a large staircase on 4th and Howard streets from the sidewalk level to the entrance of the Gardens. Another mural will live on the exterior wall of the Children’s Creativity Museum and South of Market Child Care facing the 4th Street corridor and the new SFMTA Yerba Buena/Moscone station. “Each location presents an enormous canvas to welcome residents and visitors to the Gardens and the Yerba Buena neighborhood,” said Yerba Buena Gardens Conservancy External Affairs Director Jill Linwood. “The artists’ creativity will add to the collection of renowned public art in the neighborhood.” The Conservancy said it expects the murals to be completed in early summer.
The artists were selected by a panel of community and arts leaders. Dee Jae Pa’este was born to an Irish-Chamorro mother and a Filipino father, and his family and culture is rooted in his art and lifestyle. His work is known for its strong, graphic sensibility, and consists of powerful, primary colors and bold, thick lines reminiscent of microchip circuitry and Polynesian/Filipino tribal tattoos and woven textiles.Pa’este is currently featured as a mural artist for the Department of Tourism of the Philippines, promoting tourism and local art.
The work of Filipino-born East Bay resident Mel Vera Cruz is already integrated into SoMa and celebrates the neighborhood’s Filipino heritage. In 2021, his two-block-long pavement mural design featuring Filipino baníg mats and hablon, which are hand-woven fabric in colorful plaids, was selected to be part of the Minna Natoma Art Corridor connecting the Transbay Transit Center to Yerba Buena Gardens. At Balay Kreative Studios on Mission street, windows are adorned with his graphics of Filipino heroes/Sheroes.
