New Mural at 198 McAllister St. Celebrates San Francisco's Beauty and Diversity

Artist and photographer Christopher Dydyk spent 18 months creating “Proceeding,” a 110-foot long mural that was recently installed on the seventh-floor Social Commons of the 198 McAllister St. building at UC Law SF.

To capture all the beauty, vibrancy and diversity of San Francisco in one image might sound like a daunting challenge, but that didn’t stop artist and photographer Christopher Dydyk from trying – and succeeding.

Chancellor & Dean David Faigman said the mural reflects UC Law SF’s role as an integral part of San Francisco.

The triumphant result of his 18-month effort is a continuous 110-foot long mural called “Proceeding,” which now adorns two adjoining high-wall panels on the seventh-floor Social Commons of UC Law San Francisco’s newest building at 198 McAllister St.

“We live in one of the most beautiful cities in the world,” Dydyk said. “I hope the mural exudes some of that energy, and I hope people can see themselves in it.”

The mural layers images of urban street life and the city’s many parks and natural features. It also embeds some of the most iconic San Francisco landmarks, including the Golden Gate Bridge, Painted Ladies, Castro Theatre, and UC Law SF campus buildings. Connecting it all, are the diverse people who call San Francisco home.

Chancellor & Dean David Faigman first approached Dydyk in 2021 about creating a piece to enliven the commons of the new 14-story building, then still under construction. The building’s 12 floors of student housing, known as Academe at 198, opened in August, offering 656 new apartments for students of UC Law SF and other graduate schools.

Faigman said he wanted a piece to reflect all that is San Francisco from east to west. At a Sept. 27 unveiling of the new mural, he proclaimed that Dydyk accomplished that goal and more.

“It’s everything we want as an institution to capture part of our legacy as an integral part of this great city,” Faigman said. “I think this is a legacy that will be talked about for generations.”

Christopher Dydyk posed with SF Rec & Parks GM Phil Ginsburg ’93 and former Mayor Willie Brown ’58 at a Sept. 27 mural unveiling event.

Former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown ‘58, San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department General Manager Phil Ginsburg ’93, and Sashi Deb ’94 of the UC Law SF Board of Directors were among those who attended the event to celebrate the new mural.

Dydyk first started creating Impressions like “Proceeding” in 2012, shortly after moving to San Francisco. His process involves using digital technology to layer photos over each other, emphasizing different parts of each image to create something new: an “impression” that captures more than a single moment in time.

“I call them Impressions because it’s the impression you create in your mind and in your heart when you visit a place; your feelings of a space or location in time,” he said.

For “Proceeding,” Dydyk layered thousands of photos he has taken in the city over the past decade. The ambitious undertaking required painstaking decisions on how components of countless images should be sized, located, and layered across a wide and formidable canvas.

Christopher Dydyk posed with his work, “Due Process,” in May 2022.

This wasn’t the first Impression of Dydyk’s to be featured on UC Law SF’s campus walls. Another piece he created, “Due Process,” can be found in the Deb Colloquium Room on the fifth floor of the Cotchett Law Center at 333 Golden Gate Ave. It shows the McAllister Tower rising above an urban landscape, reflecting UC Law SF’s central location and role as one of San Francisco’s most vital institutions. It is one of several original artworks by California artists featured on walls across the campus.

Dydyk first started snapping photos at age 13 on hiking trips in the Santa Monica Mountains. He later started developing photos in a dark room that his parents let him set up in his bedroom closet. He earned a bachelor’s degree in biopsychology from UC Santa Barbara before deciding to pursue his passion and enroll in the Brooks Institute of Photography. His photos were featured in a 1999 worldwide-published book, “Shy Boy, The Horse That Came In From the Wild.”

In addition to UC Law SF, his original works can be viewed on the walls at Harvard Law School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and have, in the past, hung at the headquarters of Uber, Square, and SF Magazine in San Francisco.

At the recent mural celebration, Dydyk thanked his parents and his husband, Provost & Academic Dean Morris Ratner, for encouraging him and supporting his artistic endeavors.