The Bunker SLO visitors may notice something different about the outer walls of the gallery in early 2024.
“It’s honestly really hard to describe the intricacies of all the art because a lot is going on,” said Missy Reitner, the owner and main showrunner of the San Luis Obispo gallery. “Not that it’s overwhelming but just the art is so moving and impactful to the viewer.”
The Bunker’s outside served as a canvas for a quartet of muralists, including Reitner, who worked over a few days to decorate the once blank faces of the building.
“My big thing as an artist has always been doing mural work,” Reitner said. “But when it came time for us to put some up around the Bunker, I didn’t want to be the only one doing them.”
She found her creative collaborators by chance and networking.
“One of the artists, Nicole Poppell—who did the mural on the parking lot side wall—I had met after she worked on a mural out in Pismo Beach,” Reitner said. “She and I hit it off super well and she ended up introducing me to the other two artists who worked on the other mural, Corinne Pulsinelle and Erica Friend.”
She offered them a mural artist’s dream: a tall, wide blank space on which to express themselves.
“I told them, ‘Like, hey, if I gave you a whole wall and said go and do whatever you want would you be down?’ and of course, they said yes, because who wouldn’t want that as an artist,” she said with a laugh.
The group worked for several days on two separate murals that were completed just before a massive rainstorm hit SLO.
“We worked on both murals pretty much at the same time since we had two pretty massive walls to work with, and it was just a big old mural party,” she said. “I think all of that space and camaraderie allowed us to make something that reflected what we wanted to make without worrying about meeting specific requirements.”
Reitner describes the mural primarily worked on by Poppell as abstract introspections on personal growth.
“It’s about transformations,” Reitner said. “First, for her as an artist and how the shapes and colors represent her journey as an artist, but also how those might be a similar sign of transformation for the viewer.”
The other mural, by Pulsinelle and Friend, came from a more concrete concept.
“It’s on our longer outer wall and features this hawk flying across it, we call it ‘Tony Hawk’ as a result,” Reitner said with a smile. “There’s more to it than just the hawk; it’s got things like the phases of the moon, flora, and fauna as well.”
Both murals are vibrant and stick out from far away, she said, and establish the Bunker as the creative haven for expression that she’s always wanted it to be.
“They are just both full of these beautiful colors and shapes,” she said. “It honestly makes me a little weepy thinking about the pure expression on display.”
Reitner said it’s significant that the murals were created by a group of female artists.
“Public art like this is so important to the community it’s in,” she said. “Especially when that art is being put together by diverse women in a town like this.”
Feminine artistic contributions are crucial to establishing SLO as a place for creative expression—something Reitner acknowledges the city has done very well.
“To SLO’s credit, they have done an amazing job the past few years at getting creative contributions from women and people of color for their public art pieces,” Reitner said. “Going forward, especially here at the Bunker, we plan to continue that.”
With ongoing dedication to make SLO a place of diverse open expression for artists, she’s hopeful the area can become one of California’s premier art destinations.
“We want to work with a blend of artists, both from our area and outside of our area as we did with these murals,” Reitner said. “We want people to know this is a creative space and want to come here to be able to express themselves—that’s the ultimate goal of everything we do, providing a space for that expression.” Δ
Staff Writer Adrian Vincent Rosas is thinking about how impressive painting the murals so quickly was. Reach him at arosas@newtimesslo.com
This article appears in 2023 Year in Review.