At this year’s Art Festival, slated for Braddock Park on Sunday, June 12, painter and artist Fermin Mendoza will paint an 8-foot mural. He has the whole day, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., to finish.
“I don’t want to reveal too much about the mural, but this year I’m commemorating some of the rumors about UFO sightings in the area.” — Fermin Mendoza
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“I don’t want to reveal too much about the mural,” Mendoza said, “but this year I’m commemorating some of the rumors about UFO sightings in the area. The park is named after a boxer [James J. Braddock]. The movie ‘Cinderella Man’ was about him. He has a part in my mural, or some type of a boxer versus an alien.”
Mendoza said he’s a Cuban American who grew up in North Bergen and also lived in Union City. He has now lived in Jersey City for six months, and created two murals there.
“Hudson County, to me, when I step into the streets, I can feel its heartbeat,” Mendoza said, adding that he’s hoping the energy of the residents will help him finish his project in time.
This second annual festival will include many local artists creating throughout the day and selling their wares.
Artists from throughout the area
Mendoza created smaller murals at other festivals, but this is his first year doing it at the one in North Bergen. He has a mural on the corner of Ocean Avenue and Oak Street in Jersey City, and another on the corner of Carbon Place and Route 440 in Jersey City. His most recent one is in Newark on 771 Clinton Ave.
Professional painter and art teacher of Guttenberg Juan Ramiro Torres plans to return for his second year at the festival. He said he’ll have about 12 pieces on display. He’s lived in Guttenberg for 15 years.
“I had a great experience last year. I can say that was very, great show for me,” Torres said. “I have worked in other countries. Right now I have pieces in Bolivia and France.”
He also said he has a piece in the Union City Museum.
“This year I’m showing my own works, like a few new pieces,” Torres said, noting that his culture influences his work. “My work has a lot of influences from South America, like the Incas and those traditions from there, so that’s what I’m going to show.”
Another artist and North Bergen resident, Ray Acradio, will exhibit and sell his “In Shape” series of paintings and prints along with new prints on wood created specifically for the festival. His “InShape” series is inspired by indigenous art from his homeland the Dominican Republic. He was also inspired by the happy face, Sponge Bob Squarepants, and iconography in general. The idea behind the series is to force a subject’s most identifiable characteristic into the template of a universal shape (circle or rectangle), giving it a childlike and comical effect. He’s morphed many familiar icons such as pop stars, cartoons characters, and politicians.
Acradio said, “They serve as visual puns about our constant need to get ‘In Shape’ and ‘Fit in,’ physically and/or psychologically, within our society.”
His art has been featured in galleries and museums throughout Jersey City, and another museum in Missouri. He was also chosen as one of 30 artists to represent the state in the “The Visual Imaginary of Latinas/os in New Jersey” for Rutgers University’s Center for Latinos Arts and Culture.
The second annual Arts Festival takes place in Braddock Park on Sunday June 12 from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. The rain date is Saturday, June 18, the same time.