‘I love it’: St. George artist paints the town with indoor and outdoor murals

ST. GEORGE —From ’80s nightclubs to local restaurants and mountainous bedroom walls, one artist’s work is popping up around town. And it’s newsworthy. 

Mural artist Art Sanchez takes a photo in his art studio in St. George, Utah, May 8, 2023 | Photo by Jessi Bang, St. George News
Mural artist Art Sanchez takes a photo in his art studio in St. George, Utah, May 8, 2023 | Photo by Jessi Bang, St. George News

“I’ve probably done 170-ish to 200 murals,” Arturo (Art) Sanchez said. “And then countless sketches, hundreds of tattoo designs for people. Just artwork stuff. I love it.”

Sanchez, the artist behind Cure4Art, said he grew up with a love for the creative. As a child, he remembers watching Woody Woodpecker and wanting to draw cartoons of his own.

In school, he sat in the back of the classroom so he could draw on the corners of his work without the teacher knowing. In fifth grade, his class was given an assignment to draw different things on a set of Post-it notes, but he drew a small book instead. The teacher loved his work so much that the following month, the entire class completed the same project. 

“That was the first time I felt like I ever had an influence on anything artwork,” Sanchez said.

An indoor mural by Art Sanchez is pictured, location and date unspecified | Photo courtesy of Art Sanchez, St. George News
An indoor mural by Art Sanchez is pictured, location and date unspecified | Photo courtesy of Art Sanchez, St. George News

Once he began to create artwork from a grid, it changed everything. As he focused on each square one by one, it led to his first large-scale wall art inside a burger restaurant in Anaheim, California.

“That’s when I said, ‘You know what? Now I just need to do this. I need to go places and find areas where I can paint big pieces and just stuff that people can look at and take pictures by,’” Sanchez said.

His mural career quickly took off, and he soon had the opportunity to paint a 1980s nightclub. Excited for the opportunity and a huge fan of this decade, he jumped at the chance.

An indoor mural by Art Sanchez is seen inside an 80s nightclub in California, date unspecified | Photo courtesy of Art Sanchez, St. George News
An indoor mural by Art Sanchez inside an ’80s nightclub in California, date unspecified | Photo courtesy of Art Sanchez, St. George News

“I love ’80s music,” he said. “And when they offered me the opportunity to paint this nightclub, I was like, ‘Wow, if you guys can give me creative freedom and just let me paint all the ’80s stuff I love’ – and sure enough, they did.”

After he painted the first nightclub, management hired him to paint additional locations as they opened, and in total, his work appears inside five of their clubs. He said the nightclub locations are the biggest opportunity he’s had to date.

As a resident of St. George for five years, Sanchez said he’s completed murals for everything from residential outdoor and indoor work to restaurants and commercial buildings. His art is inside the House of Jump and Pierce Performance. Outdoor murals include the sugar skull outside El Patron, a Mexican restaurant on St. George Boulevard.

Artist Art Sanchez sits by one of his indoor murals in St. George, Utah, date unspecified | Photo courtesy of Art Sanchez, St. George News
Artist Art Sanchez sits by one of his indoor murals in St. George, Utah, date unspecified | Photo courtesy of Art Sanchez, St. George News

His work also has made it to Las Vegas, with projects such as hands with doves at a church and many ice cream trucks. He is  working on a project inside a new alcohol awareness museum in Las Vegas called The Hangover and a hotel past Cedar City that will have mountain landscapes behind each bed.

“Kids’ bedrooms are a lot of fun because I usually get to do all the cartoon characters, which is where my love sort of started,” he said.

When it comes to getting his art on a large wall, he said he either uses a grid system, paints freehand or uses a projector to project the image onto the wall. Ninety percent of his artwork starts with a sketch that is turned into a digital vector file.

After taking drone footage of himself painting a backyard mural, it led him to expand his work into photography and videography. He now offers business commercials on top of his mural artwork.

An outdoor mural by Art Sanchez is seen around a pool, location and date unspecified | Photo courtesy of Art Sanchez, St. George News
An outdoor mural by Art Sanchez around a pool, location and date unspecified | Photo courtesy of Art Sanchez, St. George News

As for the name Cure4Art, he said it all started when he had to pick a Myspace name. Part of it came from his love for the ’80s band The Cure, which he always listened to while creating art.

“I love the music, but it’s also a cure for me,” he said. “Drawing, painting and doing artwork is a complete cure for me and my lifestyle.”

Sanchez hopes to have the opportunity to soon paint a mural in downtown St. George. For more information on Art Sanchez, including his past work and how to commission an art piece, find him on Instagram @cure4art.

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