Roy McMakin
Your Favorite Color, 2022
7596 Eads Avenue
20' x 20'
Leon and Sofia Kassel – Wall Sponsors
Roy McMakin’s mural, Your Favorite Color, is the second iteration of Makin’s work at this site. His first mural here created in 2010, Favorite Color, has become a beloved landmark of the local community. As such, McMakin has created a new iteration of his playful concept on the same site twelve years later. Just like its previous counterpart, Your Favorite Color came to fruition through the artist's collaborative concept centered around members of the community choosing their favorite color. Since McMakin was a child, he has always been intrigued around his own emotions, as well as others’, around color preference and favorite colors. While the new iteration of Favorite Color looks like the first version, it is completely different, as all of the color choices are new. Eight hundred and eighty-two individuals chose their favorite color over a three-day event at the Athenaeum in May 2022. There were 79 colors to choose from, and all of the colors were chosen at least once, while one color, in particular, was chosen 40 times. Lime green was the most popular color choice in 2010, and in 2022 it is classic pink. Painting directly onto the site, this piece puts color, play, and community engagement at the forefront creating a bright and cheerful grid spreading across the vast spectrum of color.
Roy McMakin is an artist whose predominantly sculptural practice includes architecture and furniture through which he demonstrates a deep engagement with the artistic potential of domestic objects and environments. He was born in 1956 in Lander, Wyoming. He studied conceptual art making under artists Allan Kaprow and Manny Farber at the University of California, San Diego, where he received both his BA and MFA. McMakin resists the conventional forms of art making through the push and pull of form and function. He seeks to bring art into the everyday as opposed to putting it on a pedestal with work that is both accessible and functional. Many of his sculptures are inspired by or incorporate found furniture. The artist reworks these objects of American domesticity, adjusting size and material to change how they are traditionally understood.
Since 1980, McMakin has had numerous solo exhibitions including at the Seattle Art Museum and The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; and his work is featured in many permanent collections including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the Hammer Museum of Art, Los Angeles; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; and the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego. McMakin lives and works in San Diego, California.
Photos by Philipp Scholz Rittermann