Francisco’s Fresh Painting is a mobile art art gallery, Studio performance piece. 

Francisco's Fresh Paintings is a public art installation piece. Francisco Palomares, a native Angelino from East Los Angeles, has transformed the iconic fruit cart he grew up seeing into a mobile art gallery and studio, where he paints live. Amidst the Covid-19 pandemic, Palomares understands artists must continue to create art. While selling his art, he practices social distancing. He continues to provide art to his local community in an avant garde manner that forecasts the future of art, as mobile and performative, long after the pandemic ends.

Every weekend, Palomares sets up on the corner of 3rd and Traction at historic Joel Bloom Square in the heart of the Arts District. He creates fine art oil paintings of fresh produce and flowers that are picturesque which also have great intention behind them. In the shadow of the mural of famous contemporary artist Ed Ruscha, Palomares paints in 30 minutes. A client often goes home with an original painting, where the paint may still be drying.  The work is fresh from the source and disrupts art mediated through a dealer. 

At the same time, Palomares views his painting cart as an homage to the entrepreneurial vendors he knew personally.  While others look down dismissively on these business owners, he recognizes they represent the American dream perfectly.  These often dismissed and invisible people embody the American can-do spirit of industry and innovation. They make a living by any means necessary, using their imagination and intelligence.

In other words, inspired by the ubiquitous fruit carts and vendors he saw while growing up in his neighborhood, he brings attention to an overlooked and underestimated cultural artifact  and people. Palomares, a classically trained painter, juxtaposes high and low art.  He directs the eye to  what might seem mundane and ordinary  and  elevates  the subject matter as special and worthy of a second, more thoughtful look. As a first generation Mexican-American, this contemporary painter, in his unassuming and playful way, masks a serious desire to celebrate the immigrant spirit and advocate for recognition of that community.

Street Vending TEMPORARILY CLOSED FOR SEASON