How an Edmonton artist is helping Oilers fans celebrate at home
If a painting is worth a thousand words, how much is an Oilers-themed mural worth? A local artist is helping fans find out.
Ashley Rosenow has been painting murals for six years.
Her work has covered walls with a variety of subjects, but since the Oilers began their playoff run this year, she’s seen an uptick in requests for team-themed pieces.
“Lots of people are wanting sports-themed murals in their homes just to have a room to celebrate in,” Resenow said.
“I’ve done a couple here and there, but now, since the playoffs have really taken off and the Oilers are so close to winning the cup, I’ve been just so busy.”
Recent requests range from stripes on walls to colour explosions to the special cultural logos the Oilers unveiled earlier in the year.
“I just love that every single one is so unique and different,” Rosenow said. “Today, I’m working on a doodle mural, and some of the things that we’ll have in here are some of the favorite players, lots of hockey related items.”
Ashley Rosenow painting an Oilers-themed mural on Wednesday June 5, 2024. (Matt Marshall/CTV News Edmonton)
Rosenow is a life-long Oilers fan, brought into the fandom by her parents. It’s a similar story to some of her clients.
“I’ve been an Oiler fan all my life,” said Mehul Patel. “My dad moved to Canada when Wayne Gretzky first made it to the Oilers, and he’s kind of instilled into me to be an Oiler fan.”
Patel’s basement now features Rosenow’s work, showcasing the main Oilers’ logo alongside the South Asian heritage logo designed by Sunny Nerval.
Oilers murals painted by Ashley Rosenow. Tuesday June 4, 2024 (Galen McDougall/CTV News Edmonton)
It took several weeks to design Patel’s basement and two days to paint it.
“It personifies our background, our cultural background, and so we wanted to have that as one of the fixture pieces,” Patel said. “The amount of effort and work and handwork that she did to do that … I love it because it’s fantastic.”
There are challenges to mural painting, she said: it can be hard on the body and sometimes clients don’t have a clear idea of what they want.
“They may just give me a list of things that they would like included in a mural and then they leave it up to me to work the artistic braid and then get it onto the wall.”
Overall, Rosenow said the key to mural success is finding different techniques to make things work and finding ways to enjoy the process.
“I’ve always been so passionate about art and … I’m just so grateful that I get to do what I love every day,” Rosenow added. “It honestly just makes me so happy to see something that was a vision, and maybe they didn’t even have a full idea of what it was going to look like, and they come in, see the full product and they say, ‘This is better than I ever imagined.’
“It just feels so good.”
The Oilers and Panthers begin the battle for the Stanley Cup on Saturday at 6 p.m.
With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Matt Woodman
