Deity @deityart 
Self-taught painter and muralist Deity was born in Hollywood, Calif. She is best known for her soft, ethereal female characters and is inspired by nature, folklore and Chicano culture. Deity started painting the streets in 2008 and has created murals in the U.S., Mexico, Canada, Italy, France, Spain, Japan and India. She uses a combination of paintbrush and aerosol as her mediums. In 2013 Deity became an active member of an international all-female painting collective known as Few and Far. She now travels around the world painting large-scale murals and helping organize community projects for youth. Currently living in Ontario, California, Deity plans to keep collaborating with other international artists to help inspire the next generation of female street artists. 

Meme (Founder of Few and Far®) @memersweets 
Graffiti artist and skateboarder Meme hails from Northern California. With Indigenous roots, she's a natural nomad. In her teens, whilst skateboarding at a skate park in Truckee, California, she fell in love with some colorful graffiti on a freight train and has never looked back. As a female skater in what is still a male-dominated world, Meme experienced negativity from her male counterparts, which made her consider quitting skating altogether. She experienced the same type of mans-club attitude in the graffiti world, and began to formulate ideas to turn the negatives into positives by creating an all-female group who would get together, skate, paint, travel, empower and support one another as women and artists. That was the beginning of Few and Far. With global support that has driven Meme and the group, the organization now has 23 international members who paint murals together around the world and skateboard together across the U.S. Every year creates new opportunities and Few and Far is now heralded as a women-powered force to be reckoned with in both graffiti and skateboarding circles. Over the last 20 years, Meme has strived to improve the world around her through activism and art. Her travels have taken her to Cuba, Mexico, Canada, Spain, France, India, Japan, China, Thailand, Dominican Republic, and soon Haiti.  

Keena Azania Romano @lamakina510
Keena exercises her creative mind through the exploration of diverse artistic mediums as a way to engage and understand individual and collective purpose. She received her BFA from Pomona College, then returned to her native Bay Area to pursue a career in the Arts. Her murals can be spotted from Sacramento, California, to Richmond, Virginia to Oaxaca, Mexico. Inspired by cultural practices, Keena combines spirituality with urban experience to produce work that draws upon the quest for a greater understanding of intersectional beauty in this world. She fuses traditional native arts with contemporary inner-city techniques to reflect a new language that encourages the healing and empowerment process between community members and their environments. Her style is described as “vibrant and insightful.” She aspires to travel and create a colorful trail of art by exploring the modern Diaspora based on her multiethnic experience.  

Martiza Thometz @prettyhard
Martzia is a self-taught visual and graffiti artist from Minneapolis making her mark since 2008. Her trademark imagery seeks to exist between the elemental contrasts of “soft” and “hard,” showering adaptability and personal evolution in an uncertain world and creating hope for a better tomorrow for all.  (Martzia is also a 2019 Chroma Zone alum. You can find her "Working Together" mural on the West side of 670 Vandalia St.)

Thomasina TopBear (Mural Meet Organizer) @tomierae
Thomasina is a self-taught artist, muralist, published illustrator and organizer from the Oglala Lakota & Santee Dakota Nations. She is a board member of the international all-female paint crew Few & Far Women and co-founded City Mischief Murals, an artist collective centered on healing through art. Specializing in large-scale murals, her work can be seen on the sides of buildings throughout the country. Thomasina has organized a number of events focusing on empowering and creating safe spaces for youth and fellow artists to practice their crafts. She draws influences from her Oceti Sakowin culture while using art to express thoughts on community, social justice, spirituality and togetherness. Thomasina has worked with numerous institutes and organizations including, Indigenous Roots Cultural Arts Center, Phipps Center for the Arts, Hennepin Theatre Trust, Minneapolis College of Arts and Design and Saint Paul College. (Thomasina is also a 2021 Chroma Zone alumn with her "UNCI MAKA" mural at 2299 W. Territorial Rd.)

Simone Alexa (Guest Artist) @simonealexaart
Simone is an African American and Hawaiiana emerging Twin Cities community artist. She has a BFA in Drawing and Painting with a minor in Teaching Art from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. Raised in a melting pot of diversity, Simone has a unique perspective on representation that has inspired her to make work about empowering and healing black and brown bodies. In her work, she deconstructs harmful representations of people of color by recreating her own definition of representation and bridging similarities between her cultures. Simone uses identifiable images and symbols to comfort viewers and inspire the continuous fight against injustice and inequality. Through multiple mediums such as painting, drawing, digital illustration, and soft sculpture she reimagines representation for Hawaiian and African American peoples. Other themes in her work include religion, the body, and identity through lenses of fantasy and Afrofuturism.

About Few and Far

Few and Far (fewandfarwomen.com) is a crew of women who beautify the streets in a shared commitment to creativity, education and social justice. They draw, paint, skateboard and teach all over the globe. Street art is an international, visual language that ever evolves. A mural is a story and each artist takes her turn in the telling. Using their gifts, they create a reflection of the world that is fantastic and distinctly feminine. By engaging their community in the narrative, they seek to foster young imagination, to help the neighborhood’s next generation recognize and channel their creative impulses. This conversation between artists and communities is an ongoing, global project to heal and bring together all peoples.

Learn more about this event at chromazone.net/few-and-far-summer-mural-meet and about the CEZ's annual festival at chromazone.net.
 

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2022 Sponsors


 

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New Roco Drilo mural on University Ave.

Many thanks to Capital Partners and Northwest Packing Inc. for welcoming the first Chroma Zone mural of 2022 at 1996 University Ave. in May.

Artist Rodrigo Oñate (@Roco_Drilo) painted his mural on the south (entrance) wall of Northwest Packaging Inc., 1996 University Ave W., Saint Paul (across from Menards near Prior Ave.)

The creation of characters and fantastic worlds is the universe that defines Roco's work. Originally from the city of Queretaro Mexico, through the years, he has followed a career as a self-taught plastic and graphic artist. He is influenced by the pop culture of the ’80s, comics, graffiti and various artists representing Mexican art.

Look for images of  woodland floral and fauna including a fox, fish, squirrels, ducks (including a crowned mallard) and more, along with Roco's signature feline (pictured to the right) in this delightful homage to Minnesota. The artist hopes this mural will bring wonder and joy, a gift to the state he once called home and key in his development as an artist. Thank you, Rodrigo, for sharing your time and artistry with us!

Learn more about the artist at chromazone.net/rodrigo-onate