St. George • A renowned Italian artist whose large-scale murals adorn buildings in more than dozen countries, Pepe Gaka joined dignitaries in St. George Friday to debut his latest creation.
Dubbed “The Sound of St. George,” the vivid 7,000-square-foot-plus mural covers the west- and south-facing walls of a downtown parking structure shared by the Advenire Hotel and City View Apartments, and pays homage to the desert flora and the area’s orchestra of note, the Southwest Symphony.
St. George City Council member Dannielle Larkin said the mural helps the city and private sector in their ongoing efforts to bolster the area’s economy and beautify the municipal downtown.
“If you came by this wall a year ago … it [was] just a big wall,” she said. “Now it’s a part of our community. It has a life of its own. It’s [not only] highlighting a very important group in our community, our Southwest Symphony, but it’s also just bringing life and beauty to our downtown.”
A sense of place and beauty
Gaka, whose real name is Giuseppe Percivati, said providing that sense of place and beauty was what he was aiming for in his mural. To that end, Utah’s state flower, the sego lily, crops up in white on the mural. So do a dizzying variety of other native flowers and plants in vivid hues of green, pink, yellow, orange and blue.
Violinist Rachel France and trombonist Timothy Francis are among a smattering of Southwest Symphony musicians featured with the flowers on the wall. Gaka, whose sister plays the violin professionally, said he added the instrumentalists as a tribute to musicians in general and to members of the local symphony in particular, to honor their hard work and contribution to the community.
France said she was honored to be included in the mural and to represent the symphony that has been a musical mainstay in St. George for more than 40 years.
“I had a neighbor text me the other day and ask, ‘Hey, is that you up on the wall?” France said. “So lots of people are recognizing it.”
(Mark Eddington | The Salt Lake Tribune) Southwest Symphony trombonist Timothy Francis mirrors the pose of him on the mural in the background at the opening of "The Sound of St. George," a mural by Italian artist Pepe Gaka, Friday, May 23, 2025.
Equally gratifying to the musicians depicted in the mural is that as they grow old, the violinist jokes, they “will remain ever young” in the mural. Gaka echoes that sentiment, saying when the musicians die, their family members will still feel connected to them as they visit the oversized work of art.
PEG, a commercial real estate investment company that owns the Advenire Hotel and adjacent apartments and parking garage, paid for the mural. St. George officials pitched in supplying the artist with an extendable aerial lift he used to paint the 227-foot-long mural, which ranges in height between 28 and 42 feet.
Peg and St. George officials put out a request for the proposal for the mural in January 2024 and selected Gaka for the project several months later.
“When we came to Pepe, there was just so much color, so much vibrancy and so much life in [his submission] …,” Larkin explained during Friday’s ceremony, adding the artist’s proven track in producing beautiful large-scale murals was also a factor.
Standing tall in Karachi
(Mark Eddington | The Salt Lake Tribune) Italian muralist Pepe Gaka stands in front of his artwork in St. George, Thursday, May 22, 2025. The work, featuring floral designs and members of the Southwest Symphony Orchestra, will be formally unveiled Friday, May 23.
Gaka started working on the St. George mural on March 17 and said he has worked 10-hour days, six days a week to complete the project. As massive as the artwork is, it still falls short of his largest pieces.
In 2019, the 287-foot-high mural Gaka painted on Centrepoint Building in Karachi, Pakistan, was credited with being the world’s tallest until it was eclipsed in 2022 by another in the Canadian province of Alberta that topped out at nearly 311 feet.
Gaka grew up in northern Italy and always wanted to be an artist. At first, he worked in the hospitality business and painted in his spare time. In 2012, he quit his bartending chores and started brushing up on his skills as a full-time street painter or “Madonarri” — an Italian word that translates to “painters of Madonna” — in Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Canada.
In 2016, he elevated his career from street art to painting larger-than-life murals. Over the past nine years, he estimated, he has finished more than 25 mammoth murals and is in demand for many more. Asked what, other than size, makes his work stand out, the artist sums it up with one three-letter word: joy.
“I want my murals to have a joyful effect and put a smile on people’s faces,” he said.
The Sound of St. George is the largest of the city’s half-dozen murals in the downtown area.
