Although Gabrielle Funk grew up drawing and painting on a small scale, she is currently enjoying creating murals.

Murals “have the elements of a personal art practice, where I’m really creatively in control and making something visual, but it’s public,” she explains.

Funk says her career was facilitated by Synonym Art Consultation, who helped her put on shows and get involved in mural-making. She is currently building up her freelance career, working for Art City, Graffiti Art Programming and The Uniter.

Funk explains that her style is constantly evolving.

“I definitely feel most comfortable with the small-scale, kind of pointillist drawings … I have more room to explore concepts and realism and play around with different mediums,” she says.

She strives to transpose these techniques to her murals.

“On the mural side of things, I feel like I’m still learning different techniques. It’s a totally different way of approaching art-making, one that I’m not as familiar with or as experienced in,” she says.

She explains that murals tend to rely on collaboration and may have an impact on the community where they are located.

“The large-scale murals are just such a dynamic process, and it’s really invigorating … it’s cool to see the impact on the place that I live,” she says.

Funk explains that the permanence of murals is one of their key features. In comparison, smaller-scale art is not constantly on display in a public gallery, and pieces of a collection might get sold to different people.

“The community element of my art practice is very important to me,” she says.

See more of Gabrielle Funk’s work at gabriellewmfunk.com.

Published in Volume 72, Number 12 of The Uniter (November 30, 2017)