We are happy to report that Mickael Broth’s “Perfect Bound” Sculpture has been installed in front of the Hull Street Public Library.

Broth won the $50,000 City of Richmond public art commission for Manchester’s Hull Street installation. For those of you who don’t know Broth’s story, he is a former graffiti-artist who was once put in jail for 10 months for painting tags along Interstate 95. He has since become a sought after muralist. Examples of his work can be seen at his Tumbler page including murals at Triple Crossing Brewing, Strangeways Brewing, Kabana Rooftop, Cookie Factory Lofts, and the Manchester Street Art’s highly photographed “Ashen Lady of the James” at the base of the Manchester Silos.

Here is how the Richmond Times-Dispatch article described the Hull Street sculpture earlier in the year in which Broth collaborated with Ashland artist Jerry Peart who has experience with metal fabrication:

“Broth’s proposed Hull Street sculpture, his first serious venture into the genre, is a tangle of muted teals, magenta and yellows titled ‘Perfect Bound’ — inspired ‘by the act of opening a book and the fantastic places it can take the reader.’”

The City’s former public art coordinator, Ellyn Parker, was quoted in the same article that it was important to select a local artist for this project:

“He wasn’t selected just because he was local,” she said. “But our selection panel was definitely excited about the idea of working with someone who knows the community, and it keeps the money in Richmond.”