Artwork called Alderwood by local artistic director Andres Lara and artist Simon Paul.
Long-time Long Branch resident Lara Andres is a real estate agent by day and a brilliant artistic director by night.
Andres and artist Simon Paul have been creating beautiful posters of landscapes and landmarks that represents Mimico, Long Branch and Alderwood that sells for $50 each on his website.
Their most recent work is a poster of Centennial Park which was created after being touched by the loss of the go kart track and batting cages that have been there for decades.
Long Branch artistic director Andres Lara creates brilliant posters based on the community he loves.
They also create a selection of apparel, including T-Shirts and baseball hats, with artwork that represents Mimico, Long Branch and Alderwood.
“I live in the community and I conduct a lot of research before a piece of artwork,” Lara said. “People love the pieces and they are all pretty well sold out.”
He only has a few pieces of the silk screen art left over considering 50 pieces of each region were created.
Andres Lara and Simon Paul’s silk screened poster called Long Branch is a big seller.
They create the artwork which are made into silk screen posters at a Kensington Market studio.
“It takes about a month and a half to create and produce a poster,” he explained. “Quality is paramount to us and we have never had a negative comment about any of the posters.”
Lara, who came to Canada as boy from Guatemala, has been living in the community for about 17 years.
He is married to wife, Ingrid, and they have a daughter, Liesl, who is six-years-old.
Lara worked as an audio engineer for about 17-years and packed it in to spend more time with his family.
He and Ingrid runs Lara Group Real Estate and began the community posters to express his creativity.
Their most recent poster Centennial Park is inspired by the loss of the go karts and batting cages.
“We first did the Long Branch poster and that just took off,” Lara recalled. “There was a waiting list of people waiting to get them.”
The posters are colourful and depicts local landscapes, landmarks and things found in the respective communities.
He will be auctioning off the last signed poster of each batch with all the proceeds going to LAMP Community Health Center.
You can bid on the poster by visiting his website at laragroup.ca
He has a store on the site where you can purchase his creative community posters and apparel.