ITEM PHOTO BY SPENSER HASAK
Brian Denahy, top, and Tallboy are making progress on their mural at 31 Spring St. in Lynn.
By MATT DEMIRS
LYNN — A local pair of artists is changing the landscape on the same streets they walked as kids.
After installing their mural of a giant sasquatch bearing the word “Believe,” Lynn’s Chris “Tallboy” Coulon and Swampscott native Brian Denahy, are ready for their artwork to become a landmark.
The two looked as though they’ve been painting together for years as they maneuvered around their giant canvas, but they actually just recently paired up.
They first met in 2008 through a mutual friend in Nahant, but never worked together until May when they painted a mural at Bent Water Brewing Company on Commercial Street..
Coulon reached out to Denahy after signing on for the Bent Water event with really short notice.
“I realized I had a lot more work cut out for me than I thought,” Coulon said. “Because he has more experience in spray paint, I ended up just asking him: ‘Would you be down to do this with me?”
So when the opportunity to partake in Beyond Walls presented to Coulon, he again reached out to Denahy.
The duo complement each other perfectly, with each artist bringing specialties to the table, Denahy with skills in typography and Coulon focusing on characters.
Their collaboration features Coulon’s sasquatch with Denahy’s word scribed on the top of the former Side Street Pub building at 31 Spring St.
“He’s one giant furry monster,” Coulon said. “We wanted to keep it lighthearted and family-friendly, but also reflect our style and the stuff we usually draw.”
The pair said they just wanted to do something fun.
“There’s a lot of technical and deep art going around and then you see ours, which is really just meant to make people smile,” the Lynn-native added.
The chemistry between the two allowed them to complement each other’s specialities and has given them the ability to help teach one another, they said.
“I’ve been following his work for as long as I can remember so it’s really cool we get to work together,” said Denahy.
Denahy’s had a passion for art since he was young and was introduced to downtown Lynn through RawART’s film school, he said.
Denahy, who graduated from Salem State University, does graphic design at a print shop in Cambridge. Coulon also graduated from SSU, then worked in screen printing for five years at a company in Peabody.
Coulon, who also does graphic arts and illustrations full time, owns a company called Night Watch Studios with his wife where they specialize in unique posters, patches, pins, T-shirts and more.
Denahy said that the murals will shed a new light on Lynn and get people excited to explore downtown.
For kids growing up down here, he said, it could inspire a new generation of artists and allow them to express themselves creatively in different ways.
“You remember things growing up that stood out because they are different, like the orange dinosaur and the Hilltop sign on Route 1,” he said. “I would be really excited to see things like this out the car window as a kid and I’d remember it for a long time.”
Matt Demirs can be reached at [email protected].
