Wemby’s An All-Star in These San Antonio Murals

Since retiring to San Antonio after 47 years as a radio news broadcaster in Central Texas, Ed Mayberry has been the Old Man With the Camera, exploring his new hometown and posting images of his adventures on Facebook.

“I love the culture, I love the architecture, I love the missions, I love the artistic scene,” he says.

He’s become especially taken with the mural scene—various expressions of art painted on cement, brick, asphalt and other available surfaces. A keen observer of trends, Mayberry says that over the past year, 21-year-old Victor Wembanyama, now in his second season with the San Antonio Spurs, has seized the mantle from Selena, Frida, La Virgen, Doug Sahm, and Dia de los Muertos as San Anto’s favorite mural subject. 

“This Frenchman who’s come to town has become its ambassador, its public face,” Mayberry says. “The work is on all levels.” Artist Nik Soupè, a veteran of the street art world, and his Los Otros mural group is at the top. Mayberry also cites the works of Colton Valentine, Shek Vega, Mike Comp, Alan Calvo, and Micheal Sanchez.

Soupè was such a believer in the 7-foot, 2-inch-tall Wembanyama that even before he was drafted by the Spurs two years ago, Soupè painted a realistic Wemby rendering on the outside wall of Rudy’s Seafood. “He believed in him from the beginning. All of a sudden, every artist in town had to do a Wemby,” Mayberry says, who has counted twenty so far.

See Mayberry’s photo collection of Wemby murals below.