A new art installation is underway at Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture. For the first time ever, the National Park Service is allowing the military tan color of these historic buildings to be covered with fantastic murals. Through a commission with local artist Thitiwat Phromratanapongse (Thi), the creation of Wat Walls is in process!

Location: The corridor between buildings B and C has 16 old loading dock bays and the 6’ x 40’ underside of an elevated passageway, all of which plays as a canvas. The theme of Wat Walls is a homage to Thai temple walls, with wave-like forms that weave together into delicate pattern fields, birds and other fauna in-flight, and spiritual beings in repose. Wat Walls transforms the area into an immersive 213’ long “corridor gallery”, in this spectacular setting on the edge of the bay.

Joining Thi in the creation of Wat Walls is Sarah Siskin. Both artists are familiar names in the Bay Area mural scene.

Dates: Wat Walls will be completed September 17, 2021, and on view through January 30, 2022

About the Artists

Thitiwat Phromratanapongse studied fine art and received a B.A. in Asian American Studies from UCLA. Thi moved to Oakland to work for the Estria Foundation, and now works with Trust Your Struggle. Both organizations are community driven nonprofits that use mural art to further social and environmental awareness. In addition to large-scale mural work, he works in drawing, painting, and recently in food. His work features high attention to detail with brushstrokes rooted in calligraphy to build his imagery.

Sarah Siskin is a resident muralist with La Peña Cultural Center and an artist and educator with the community based mural arts organization  Precita Eyes Muralists. She has worked on many mural projects both collaboratively and individually, and participated as an artist in mural festivals in Argentina and Chile. She graduated with a BA from Sarah Lawrence College where she studied human geography and visual arts and has applied her art and community organizing skills in diverse communities across the Americas. In 2016, she co-founded and hosted a mural festival in a rural agricultural town in Chile and the following year Sarah was the event creator and head organizer of the first annual Bay Area Mural Festival.