Malinda's Mural

"Phoenix artists Hugo Medina and Darrin Armijo-Wardle started the mural on Friday, May 26, and finished on Sunday, May 28. It measures 70 feet high and 50 feet wide. It’s the image of a woman's face, set atop a rendition of the former Hotel Adams, with blazing hair painted in colors of the Arizona sunset.

"We didn't have pictures of Malinda, but we knew she was an African-American woman," Medina says. "We searched images of madams from that time period, then painted a composite portrait to represent Malinda." Frankly, it's not particularly flattering. And it could easily be mistaken for the portrait of a man.

Both artists worked on every part of the mural, Medina says. Even so, the face reflects more of Medina's monochromatic style, and it lacks some of the sweetness present in several of Armijo-Wardle's other portraits. Medina's real gift is creating hands, like those that grace a mural he painted on the east-facing exterior wall of Modified Arts on Roosevelt Street in May."

-Lynn Trimble, Phoenix New Times

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