Land Art Generator

Solar Mural® artwork program

— anything an artist can do in paint, they can now do in solar!


With the advent of solar panel customization, art in public space stands ready for a revolution. Solar Mural® artworks celebrate local culture, provide new opportunities for artists, and make communities more vibrant and livable, all while reducing the carbon footprint of our cities as part of the solution to climate change. In sustainable cities of the very near future, murals will be fabricated from photovoltaic panels as often as they are created with paints.

We work with communities and site owners and:

  • Helps to identify local partners
  • Facilitates call to local artists and muralists through RFP and RFQ process
  • Helps with public outreach and educational program development
  • Assists with budgeting
  • Identifies ideal sites and mural orientation
  • Identifies appropriate solar technology
  • Facilitates the design process
  • Provides detailed fabrication drawings
  • Coordinates fabrication and installation

Please contact us to bring a Solar Mural® artwork to your community!


Email us at lagi@landartgenerator.org

La Monarca
a Solar Mural® artwork

La Monarca is the world’s first Solar Mural® installation!

The unveiling of the first Land Art Generator Solar Mural artwork took place on November 11th, 2017 at Luminaria: Contemporary Arts Festival in San Antonio.

The La Monarca image was designed by San Antonio artist Cruz Ortiz with creative direction by Penelope Boyer.

It’s been quite a journey to get to this point—from the day we conceived of the concept of Solar Mural® artworks as we gazed up at a blank south-facing wall in Las Vegas several years ago. We are so thankful that Penelope Boyer latched on to the Land Art Generator idea as a mechanism for spreading public awareness about the plight of the Monarch Butterfly, and helped to put together the incredible team.

La Monarca has been a collaboration between Land Heritage Institute (LHI)’s LHI Art-Sci Projects, EPIcenter, the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), and the Land Art Generator. Fabrication and technical support has been provided by OCI Solar Power, Mission Solar Energy, and Sun Action Trackers. The project has been made possible through support from the Alice Kleberg Reynolds Foundation, Texas Commission on the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

La Monarca is a giant lotería card celebrating San Antonio’s status as the National Wildlife Federation’s first Monarch Butterfly Champion City.

Following the close of Luminaria, La Monarca will find a permanent home inside a pollinator garden on the EPIcenter campus along the Mission Reach of the San Antonio River where it will generate solar energy that will feed directly into the building and the city power grid.

In the near future, Las Monarcas will be a swarm of Monarch Butterfly-inspired Land Art Generator artworks to be designed for placement at and to provide power to social service centers, municipal buildings or eco-cultural tourism destinations in the City of San Antonio, or other stops along Monarch Butterfly migration routes. The expanded installation will be emblematic of the full range of issues the Monarch Butterfly has come to represent: species extinction due to global warming and climate change; immigrant, exile, and refugee rights; and now, renewable energy and regenerative design.

En Aquellos Tiempos Fotohistorias del Westside
a Solar Mural® artwork

The visionary commitment by Esperanza Peace and Justice Center to illuminate the En Aquellos Tiempos Fotohistorias del Westside project for nighttime viewing in the most beautiful and environmentally sustainable way is a reminder to all of us that every solution to the climate crisis is also an opportunity to lift up our communities and to beautify our neighborhoods. With this artwork you are telling the story to future generations about this time in our story when we did everything we could do to meet the challenge of creating an equitable human civilization that is in harmony with nature.

This artwork is not only something to take pride in as a local community; it is also a landmark to the transition we are undertaking as a global community from a system of consumption and exploitation of nature to a system of stewardship of nature and empathy for our fellow humans. The only viable transition is a just transition.

Read more here.

Artwork by Adriana Garcia

Art Direction by Penelope Boyer

Poetry by Carmen Tafolla

Photography on artwork by Antonia Padilla

Project partners include: Esperanza Peace & Justice Center, Land Art Generator, Mr. Vega’s 5th grade class at JT Brackenridge, Community elders from the Westside, South Texas Solar Systems, Mission Solar Energy, Outback Power, Sistine Solar, and Unirac.

Made possible through funding from the Texas Commission on the Arts, Awesome San Antonio, and the Alice Kleberg Reynolds Foundation.