Arts & Culture By Joan Tapper
Beau Brown (bottom) got his start designing for Captain Fatty’s and created a mural for the company’s former Funk Zone location (below); his projects now often feature strong black outlines with pops of color.
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Feasts for the Eyes HAND-PAINTED MURALS AND SIGNS LIVEN THE RESTAURANT SCENE.
here’s an old saying that you eat with your eyes, meaning that the visual appeal of a dish has a lot to do with its success. Owners of restaurants, bars, coffee shops, and bakeries have also long known that a painted backdrop can help establish a mood or set the scene for a delightful meal. It’s no surprise then that several artists in the 805 area are building careers by creating interior murals, large-scale wall art, and inviting outdoor signage for eateries and other businesses. Lisa Kelly (lisakellymurals.com), who grew up in Ventura and now lives on a boat in Ventura harbor, specializes in such murals—“from faux to figurative stuff,” she says. But her first job was mass-producing
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paintings for furniture stores. “I learned to paint— and paint fast,” she remembers. By the early 1990s she was exhibiting her own canvases at art shows when someone approached her about doing a wall portrait of him with his dog. That request turned into a year-long project painting murals in a residence in North Ranch. “I started doing restaurants in 2001,” says Kelly, who began with Yolanda’s in Camarillo. That connection has lasted for two decades as she’s provided atmospheric murals for the restaurant’s venues in Simi Valley, Oxnard, and Ventura, as well. For Lure Fish House in Santa Barbara, Kelly created a jellyfish wall, and she has painted in the chain’s other restaurants, too. “I’ve got the Lure >
FROM LEFT: PATRICIA CORTINA; LISA KELLY; SEAN RAYMOND COLLIER; SEAN RAYMOND COLLIER
Lisa Kelly applies color to a logo for Lure Fish House (left), one of her regular mural customers. Her work at the Stout Bourbon Room (above) graces a wall at The Yard in Ventura.
