Street Artist 'Believe In People' Debuts Massive New Mural In SoMa

Street Artist 'Believe In People' Debuts Massive New Mural In SoMa

Photo: Elaine Gavin/Hoodline

Elaine Gavin
Published on January 20, 2017

Anonymous East Coast artist Believe in People, who has created murals and public art around the globe, has debuted a new piece in SoMa, adjacent to (and with the support of) the Westfield San Francisco Centre mall. 

The piece, titled "No Ceiling," depicts an upward-looking young woman with an anchor tattoo featuring San Francisco and Oakland's area codes, 415 and 510, on her arm. It's located on the Jessie Street alley overlooking Mission, on the building that houses a Denny's location. 

"I hope to win you over with hard work and dedication to my art form for the next few weeks," Believe in People said on Instagram before beginning work on the mural, crediting the Westfield and paint manufacturers Montana Colors and Spray Planet for their support. 

Despite heavy recent rainfall, BiP has made rapid progress on the mural since Curbed SF reported on it earlier this month. However, the artist does not take interviews, noting on his website that he "doesn't have much to say that wouldn't look better on a wall." (He's a New Haven, CT, native, and The Yale Daily News scored a rare chat with him in 2011, though his identity remained hidden.)

This isn't BiP's first Bay Area mural. In 2015, he created "Self-Consuming Self-Dave," a seven-story piece on the side of 685 Ellis St. in the Tenderloin. Another of his large-scale murals, "Vintage," is located in downtown Oakland. 

We reached out to the Westfield to learn more about the mural project and how it came to be, but did not hear back.