If you’re one of the many who thought the windowless wall of the 10-storey condo building at 899 Esquimalt near Head looked like a lifeless, grey slab of blah, a colourful change is just about complete. 

A large mural is going up on the east-facing side of the Pacific House condo, and artist Liesl Petersen says three years after she applied to do the work, it’s finally close to being finished.

“We’re 70% done and working our way down,” she tells Capital Daily, as she takes a break from her huge canvas in the sky, where she’s painting a “sunset wall,” as she calls it. 

Looking west at the wall, you’ll see Petersen’s forest of purple trees in the foreground with an orange sky and lighter-purple mountains behind.

Petersen says she thinks the colours are warm and inviting. She says that’s important for a painting that’s so big and will be seen by so many.

“I definitely am the kind of person who's deeply offended by concrete walls,” she says.

“I actually don't like the amount of sterile colours and grey and clinical colours that everybody uses these days. So I try to infuse really bold, bright colours wherever I [have] the opportunity to, because I do believe that colours affect people's psychology. And so, yeah, that's just my lot in life—to try and inject colour into people's faces.”

Social media comments on the work in progress have ranged from “Love it” to the faceplant emoji to “Anything to cover up that hideous blank wall” to “All there (sic) doing is hiding how ugly the concrete looks.”

Esquimalt embraces murals

You’ll see many murals in Esquimalt, which, in 2016, adopted a public art policy “to cultivate a more vibrant community full of visually exciting and identifiable spaces where art in all its forms is incorporated into everyday life.”

In 2022, the policy was amended to incorporate a public art plan to “enhance the quality of life, strengthen community pride, and contribute to cultural and economic vitality,” according to the district’s website. 

Not too long after, Petersen submitted a design proposal to the district, and it was approved. 

“It's quite funny, because I've heard that other artists kind of put their hat in the ring, like in the last six months. But I think what they don't know is that you have to submit the design for approval during the preliminary stages of the development when they're just breaking ground,” she says. 

Petersen owns a construction painting company in Squamish—60% is mural work, 40% is construction painting—and has been painting murals for 12 years. She’s painted hundreds of these mass-canvas works of art. This is her first in Victoria.

It's not an easy job

As a climber—which is what drew her to mural painting—Petersen has no issues with heights. But logistics are a different matter.

Poor weather and a team of concrete workers doing deficiency work have been constant companions on the wall since she started to paint it on Oct. 4, but what’s been a challenge is learning to operate the suspended swing stage platform.

“This is my first time using that type of a lift,” she tells Capital Daily. 

“It's the same kind of lift that they use on high-rises for window washing, but it requires two people, because there's a separate winch on each side of the platform, and it requires two people to simultaneously operate the winches.”

It's good to have good help

That’s where Victoria artist Raya-Jayne Peters comes in—not only to muscle the platform up and down but also to do her fair share of painting, which has been “amazingly helpful,” Petersen said. 

It will be Peters who completes the mural if the two artists can’t finish it before Petersen is scheduled to head south to Mexico for her annual winter vacation at month’s end. And it’ll no doubt be time off well-earned.  

Painting is hard. And painting murals in the sky isn’t all sunshine and glory, Petersen says. Her days start early, and there’s a constant rush to get in as much work as possible before the daylight drains, beginning with two solid hours of safety checks.

“First, I have to go to the roof, I have to inspect the lift, and I have to make sure that all the safety gear is in place and sound and hasn't been moved. And then I have to do the same thing at the bottom. And then I have to load all my gear into the lift, and then I have to go all the way up.”

Petersen estimates her days consist of two hours of safety protocol, eight hours of painting, and two hours of cleanup. 

Often, Petersen will use a projector to trace her patterns, but this time, because of the vastness of her concrete canvas, she drew it freehand. 

“When you're on a wall that big, and you've got your nose against the wall, and you're on these swing decks, you can't step back to have a look at what you've done. You have to kind of learn how to intuitively use large body gestures to measure what you're doing,” she says.

“And I had to do it in four vertical strips, so I decided to just freehand it and kind of intuitively move through it as I went, and I'm actually quite impressed that it seems to be going as I planned.”

Ensuring the lift’s wheels don’t roll over the wet paint is a constant challenge. It’s damp and windy up there, and bathroom breaks have to be planned, but Petersen calls it a thrill-seeking adventure.

“It's like the same thrill you get from going rock climbing and trying a really hard route, with the risk of, you know, taking a big swing fall,” she says.

“When I'm painting on this wall, it's kind of the same risk. I'm like, ‘Oh, I could really screw this up. Everybody will see it.’ So it's kind of fun.”