Lansing street artist Eufoe works on a commissioned piece Tuesday behind Outback Automotive, 2608 N. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., in Lansing. Eufoe was contacted by a photographer to paint the wall to be used as a backdrop for wedding photographs.
When workers decided to repaint a wall facing the Harrison Roadhouse’s parking lot, the pub’s employees opted for a more vibrant design created by a local graffiti artist instead of keeping the wall’s mundane color.
After seeing local artist Eufoe’s work at an exhibit at (SCENE) Metrospace, 110 Charles St., Jennifer Schoon, general manager of the Harrison Roadhouse, 720 Michigan Ave., hired Eufoe to paint a mural for the wall. Eufoe goes by a pseudonym to avoid potential legal ramifications.
(SCENE) Metrospace, East Lansing’s city-funded contemporary art and performance space, held the exhibit featuring Eufoe’s work — Graffiti: The Second Installation — from May 6 to June 26.
“When we conceived of doing the graffiti show at (SCENE) Metrospace, one of the hopes was that … business owners …would have a chance to come in and see what a wall could actually look like and what a graffiti artist could actually do for some blasé wall,” (SCENE) Metrospace Director Tim Lane said.
Lane said the exhibit was successful because it helped connect local businesses with local artists, such as Eufoe.
“(The Roadhouse hiring Eufoe) was a perfect merger of art and business,” Lane said. “It was great to have a local business support the arts in that way — to actually give an artist a chance to make some public art and make a little spending cash while doing it.”
When Schoon contacted Lane and asked him to recommend an artist for the pub’s project, he immediately recommended Eufoe.
“I thought his work was fabulous,” Lane said. “I thought he was very talented, and in all my dealings with him for the graffiti show, he was very professional and very easy to work with.”
Eufoe’s passion for graffiti began after he traveled to Europe when he was 17 years old. Eufoe, who at the time planned to attend college to study physics and meteorology, said he was inspired by the impressive graffiti he saw while traveling the continent.
“I saw graffiti everywhere in Europe, and it was really, really intricate and detailed and not like the scribble I’ve seen around Lansing,” he said. “So I just slowly started getting into (graffiti).”
Soon after returning to the U.S., Eufoe applied to Kendall College of Art and Design in Grand Rapids to pursue an art degree.
Now, two years after graduation, Eufoe spends his free time searching Greater Lansing for places to paint.
“I’ll paint anything as long as it’s cool to paint,” Eufoe said.
The wall Eufoe painted for the Harrison Roadhouse — which took him an entire day to finish — is one of his favorite pieces.
“It’s one of my better walls,” Eufoe said.
In addition to the Roadhouse, Eufoe has painted many other buildings in the area, including Gone Wired Cafe, 2021 E. Michigan Ave., and Fountain Place Apartments, 920 S. Washington Ave., both in Lansing.
The piece featured at (SCENE) Metrospace’s summer exhibit was a project Eufoe worked on with another local artist, Tuna, who also chooses to be known by a pseudonym.
Tuna is a law student who said he treats creating graffiti as a hobby and a way to relieve stress.
The pair has collaborated on other projects and has become involved with the area’s graffiti community.
“I’ve met tons of people that I wouldn’t have met if it wasn’t for graffiti,” Tuna said. “Some of the nicest and most loyal friends that I have are graffiti writers or art-oriented people, so I’m very thankful to be involved.”
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Lane said he hopes the pair’s participation in his exhibit will allow them to continue working with businesses in the East Lansing community.
“I think the community leans on artists quite a bit,” he said. “It’s great when an artist gets a chance to lean on the (local) businesses a little bit.”
