City Art Bus
Reimagining everyday transit as a canvas for public art.
Each year, a winning design is chosen to transform a 35' clean diesel public transit CAT bus and JAUNT bus into spectacular moving murals. The design competition draws contributions from dozens of local, national, and international artists.
Current Winners
2021 CAT Bus:
Shelby Baillie
Baillie is an avid lover of graphic design, product design, Illustration and the creative design process. A resident of Cape Coral, Florida, Baillie was one of the dozens of national applicants of the 2021 Art Bus Competition. Her pastoral Blue Ridge design speaks to the environmental ecosystems of Charlottesville and Albemarle. Learn more about Shelby's freelance and commissioned work. www.shelbybaillieart.com
2021 Jaunt Bus:
Lindsay Heider Diamond
Diamond has worked as a professional illustrator, graphic designer, art director and creative director on both coasts. For the last 10 years, she has taught art to children, created book covers and interiors for professional authors and incarcerated writers, continues a fine art practice and is now also working at writing and illustrating children's books.
Past Winners:
2020 CAT Bus:
Bridget Olsen
Winning designer Bridget Olsen is a Charlottesville native currently studying creative technologies at Virginia Tech. Her "main influences include dreams, music, sea life, and vivid colors," which make regular appearances in her work. As an artist with a learning disability, she hopes her win will inspire other young artists to see their disabilities as a strength.
2020 JAUNT Bus:
Julia Bailey
Winning designer Julia Bailey is currently a junior at Charlottesville High School, where she is enrolled in a digital art class. Her design was inspired by her love of animals including her family’s three cats. She has been fostering with the CASPCA since the age of 10 and aspires to one day become a crazy cat lady. She thanks her art teacher, Ms. Van Yahres, for her encouragement and guidance.
2019 CAT Bus:
Egypt
2019's winning Charlottesville Area Transit (CAT) bus design was created by Egypt, an artist and muralist from Los Angeles, California currently based in Tampa, Florida. Her work “New Beginnings, Eternal Life” amplifies a story of growth, transition, and culture by featuring iconic black artists, performers, and intellectuals, juxtaposed with imagery of African nature scenes and Egyptian royalty. Egypt’s design won both the community vote and the CAT bus drivers’ vote.
2019 Jaunt Bus:
Craig Snodgrass
The second winning design for the fifth annual City Art Bus competition was created by Craig Snodgrass. Snodgrass is a Staunton-based painter, illustrator, web developer, and self-proclaimed “robot fighter.” His design features a series of exploratory robots roaming a lunar landscape.
2018 CAT Bus:
Sam Gray
Sam is a member of McGuffey Art Center and works there as an artist, illustrator, and freelance graphic designer. Her work spans various media from painting and drawing to printing and ceramics, but throughout it all she often features a confluence of people and nature. She was born and raised in Northern Virginia and studied graphic design at the University of Georgia, graduating summa cum laude in 2012. In 2016 she became an Incubator Artist at the McGuffey Art Center.
2018 Jaunt Bus:
Andrew Stronge
Andrew Stronge has been a freelance graphic designer for a number of years, working extensively in screen printing and web design; he frequently employs bold and minimalist designs that are easy to spot. He has been contracted by UVA, C-Ville Weekly, and Crazy Horse for his work.His JAUNT bus design, “Outerspace,” launches us into our galaxy, bringing space travel and exploration of our “final frontier” front and center. “I wanted to design something forgiving to the contour and shape of the bus; I’ve always been a fan of robots & retro futurism to the point it’s become a niche,” says Stronge.
2017 CAT Bus:
Paul Hostetler
Paul Hostetler is a freelance illustrator, painter, and comics maverick. He graduated from the Savannah College of Art and Design in 2009 with his BFA in Illustration and is currently a McGuffey incubator artist. His clients include Virginia Living, Adbusters, Whurk, Experience Life!, Smart Lab Toys, The Jefferson Center for Free Speech, 2RW Consultants, the Aquarium of the Pacific, Random House Publishing, Arlington magazine, Bethesda magazine, C-Ville Weekly, Charleston Home, Kent County Public Libraries, Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press, The South magazine, and The Utne Reader.
2016 CAT Bus:
SWANK of ICU Art
Paul “SWANK” Nandee is a Los Angeles based artist/designer who is a part of the prestigious ICU Art collective. SWANK has completed work on projects for a wide range of companies including: Ford Motor Company, Touchstone Pictures, The Learning Channel (TLC), Pepsi, MTV, Delta Airlines, ESPN, URB Magazine, Virgin Mobile, RIOT Games, Activision, Gatorade, and NIKE. Through a partnership between Tom Tom, CAT, Second Street Gallery and ICU Art, SWANK designed the digital wrap that transformed the 29’ hybrid Art Bus though cheerful characters and animals.
2015 CAT Bus:
Mickael Broth
Mickael Broth is an acclaimed muralist with works across the US and is the co-founder of Richmond’s Welcoming Walls, a project dedicated to bring large-scale public art to the highways and gateways of Richmond, VA in an effort to boost civic pride, tourism, and the city’s reputation as a capital. Broth is also a published author and recipient of VMFA’s Professional Fellowship. For the first annual City Art Bus, Broth painted a soon to be decommissioned 35’ long flyer bus that was on view for one year after its completion during the 2015 festival. Its colorful design provided a playful take on Charlottesville’s history and landmarks.
