Mosaic & Mural Conservation

City of Santa Fe Springs Library Mural

In conjunction with a construction project at the City of Santa Fe Springs, RLA Conservation provided a general assessment, protection and conservation treatment of sculptures and integral artworks. One of the artworks was a wall-mounted mural, painted on a combination of a delicate mural, painted in water soluble and acrylic paints directly onto the masonry wall surface. Because the artwork was at ground level it was embedded with grime and dirt from touching and paint was detaching in numerous places on the face of the artwork and fungal growth was noted in interstices of the painted image.  Work consisted of testing solubility of the paint, dusting the surface, performing wet cleaning to remove grime over the varnish layer, mitigating fungal growth to the concrete, and spot inpainting as needed. Following treatment, the mural was covered to provide protection during the construction project. Additional cleaning, inpainting, and varnishing was carried out once the construction project had been completed.