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Look out, Eureka! The Del Norte Street Pier Park, commonly known as “Shark Park,” just got a lot sharkier, with a group of artists – including Peruvian-Canadian artist Chris Dyer – painting a colorful mural on the bathroom near the playground. 

The project, titled the “Spiritual Shark Tank,” was organized by local muralist Ben Goulart, who offered to do a free mural for the City of Eureka. Staff from the City’s community development department worked with Goulart and identified the bathroom building at Del Norte Pier Park as a place that needed a little makeover. He decided that a shark-themed mural would be the perfect fit. 

So a few days ago Goulart and his apprentices Mariqus Eurgene Ludd and Scott Robertson got to work, pressure washing the building and then adding two coats of primer. On Wednesday the team began painting the mural and was joined by Dyer, who was covering one of the walls with a shark-like creature in his own psychedelic style, and local artist Blake Reagan, who was also adding his work to a section of the mural. 

Dyer poses in front of his creation

A big fan of Dyer’s art, Goulart saw on social media that Dyer was going to be in Humboldt to teach a painting workshop at a healing retreat in Willow Creek and hit him up to see if he wanted to work on a mural while he was in town. Dyer said he was happy to take the job and was excited to be asked to paint an aquatic creature, which is a subject he often features in his art. 

“[Goulart] just told me that we were painting at this spot called the ‘Shark Park’ and we’re painting sharks,” Dyer told the Outpost as he was spray painting the wall on Wednesday. “And I was like ‘sweet. I’m a Pisces, I like to paint fish, I can paint my own version of a shark’…I’ve never painted a shark, but I guess it’s technically a kind of fish.”

Dyer has been a professional artist for nearly 20 years and has painted canvases, skateboard decks and walls all over the world. His work is featured in many museums, including the Bob Marley Museum in Jamaica and the Street Art Museum in Amsterdam, and he has been written about in Thrasher and High Times magazines.

One of his signature street art styles is what he calls “fish bombing,” where he paints stylized fish on a wall or object in different cities that he visits. Dyer could only commit to one day of work and was finishing his creation on Wednesday, but Goulart said that the other three artists will be painting for another few days, covering all four sides of the building with the trippy aquatic scene. After the painting is complete, the whole thing will be covered with sealant, to protect the mural from weather and graffiti. 

Though Dyer has spent some time in Humboldt before (he has designed clothes and done brand management for Satori Movement and has attended Reggae on the River), this project is Dyer’s first permanent mural in Humboldt, and he was happy to contribute his creature – which he referred to as an “interdimensional robotic shark” – to the area.  

“I’m happy to see empty walls turning into art-ified walls,” Dyer said. “That’s always a positive thing for everybody…I’m happy about leaving more of my personal expression for Humboldt, which is a place that I’ve always enjoyed.”