People We Meet: Ian Beermann will paint just about anything, except ceilings (2024)

Ian Beermann is here to paint the town — literally.

Born in Walnut Creek but raised in Modesto, Beermann filled his home with canvas paintings growing up. When his dad, a detective, replaced the backyard wood fence with cinder block, Beermann painted that too. But Modesto didn’t have many artistic opportunities or as Beermann put it, “There’s only so many walls.”

So, leaving Modesto behind, he moved in 2022 to San Francisco, found a place in Nob Hill, and started waiting tables by day and painting murals whenever he could.

Soon after moving, he asked a businesswoman if he could paint a boarded-up window. He got a “yes.” And so came his San Francisco debut: a vase of flowers outside a florist’s workspace. Beermann called the experience a “bright spot,” adding: “Every time you hear a ‘yes,’ your eyes light up.”

Muralists often have a trademark image or style. Beermann said he was most inspired by Amanda Lynn, whose murals of figures or animals are often surrounded by lush, vibrant foliage. And while he sometimes includes a flower or two, it is the banana that has become Beermann’s character. One example is on the side of Cannavine Cannabis Dispensary on 2nd Street. That banana smoking is smoking weed.

Beermann said he likes the banana’s yellow color and finds that the line down the fruit’s middle gave his figures three-dimensions. The figure also gets a good response. Cannavine’s manager said Beermann’s mural made the dispensary a “landmark on the street.”

His dream project is to fill a huge space several stories high; he points out the wall of the Hobart Building as we walk past. “A 50-foot banana —why not?”

Over time, Beermann has perfected his pitch to business owners to let him paint the facades. Negotiating prices, which range in the hundreds, can be a “struggle” and depends on factors like square footage, creative freedom and whether he has to get on a ladder (he’s not fond of heights). But Beermann tells owners he’ll fix the mural for free if it gets graffitied — incentivizing them, he said, since graffiti fines can fall on owners otherwise.

“I’ve done plenty of work, which is good,” he said. “Some paid, some unpaid, but that’s just the way it goes.”

Beermann has made a home in his “favorite city.”

“’Sup Ian?” asks the barista at Souvenir Coffee on Larkin Street where we stopped for an interview. And when we duck into The Birdcage on Sutter Street, a community space and waiting area for the next-door salon, co-owner Chauntae Moore gives Beermann a hug. The Birdcage’s bathroom features Beermann’s painting of a window view of the city, illuminated by pink lighting; Moore said patrons “love the vibe in there.”

But it was Beermann’s mural on 18th and Guerrero that caught Roman Ivanov’s eye. Ivanov, who moved to the Mission from New York with his wife two years ago, saw the mural, connected with Beermann on Instagram, met him at an art show and invited him to paint a mural in the couple’s backyard. The project took weeks of planning and painting; Ivanov threw a party last weekend to unveil it.

Ivanov said he was motivated by Beermann’s drive, adding that Beermann “truly, truly loves San Francisco.”

Beermann is always on the lookout for spaces to paint. Sometimes he takes wood boards from alleyways, paints them and leaves them out for the next person to find. He even painted bananas on the kitchen and bathroom walls of his old apartment, though he had to paint over those when he moved out. That took “several coats,” he said.

He could go to canvas more, but for him, canvas feels “too transactional.” To Beermann: he paints, someone pays, and people never see it again. He likes painting murals because people get to enjoy the art for free, he said: “It’s more for the people.”

Beermann has painted one ceiling and never wants to again, calling the project a “three-day ordeal”: “Your neck hurts, your arm hurts,” he said. And he dislikes heights.

His painting life is going well enough that when his girlfriend, also from Modesto, joined him, they found a larger apartment near Mission Bay. He still needs his day job, but if the art isn’t yet supporting him, he gets a lot of pleasure out of seeing strangers enjoy it. He saw a passerby snap a photo of his Hyde Out mural on California Street, he says, clearly thrilled.