Seascape on Arena Walls Will Be One Whale of a Project : Art: City officials and renowned artist paint a deal to create the world’s largest mural.

An artist who has painted huge murals of whales in cities around the world plans to cover the sides of the entire Long Beach Arena with a giant seascape that apparently would be the world’s largest mural.

Wyland, who does not use his first name professionally, has agreed to paint a life-sized scene of whales and other local marine life on all 116,000 square feet of the arena’s outside walls next spring, assuming that enough private and corporate donors come forth to cover the cost of the project.

The Long Beach mural would be the 33rd of 100 marine murals the Laguna Beach artist says he wants to paint around the world by the year 2011 “to bring attention to not only the whales, but the ocean.”

City officials figure that the mammoth mural also would reap publicity for Long Beach and its soon-to-be-expanded Convention and Entertainment Center, which sits in the same complex as the 14,000-seat arena, between Ocean Boulevard and the waterfront.

“This is the artist I feel can do a quality job and bring worldwide attention to Long Beach,” said Vice Mayor Jeffrey A. Kellogg, whose office approached Wyland about doing a Long Beach project.

The 35-year-old artist said the arena painting would be his largest. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, it would be the biggest mural in the world, eclipsing the current record-holder in Las Vegas, a 95,442-square-foot hotel mural.

Under an agreement approved Tuesday by the Long Beach City Council, Wyland will donate his services and retain the right to reproduce the mural in print or video. The city is responsible for providing the paint and scaffolding and covering incidental costs. Officials say they do not intend to use any city funds for the project; they hope to persuade private individuals and companies to donate the materials.

Other Wyland murals cover walls in cities from France to Japan, including several in Southern California. His most recent project, completed earlier this year, is a painting of migrating whales on the west wall of the Southern California Edison Co. generating station in Redondo Beach.

“I think it’s been universally applauded as being really wonderful,” said Jim Graham, a spokesman for the Redondo Beach Harbor Department, which is near the Edison plant.

The reception to Wyland’s work is not always so enthusiastic. In the past, his murals have sometimes been criticized as monstrous eyesores. And in Long Beach this week, two columnists for the Press-Telegram took aim at the arena proposal. In one piece, editorial writer Graham Dower lambasted Wyland’s murals as “high-water kitsch” more appropriate for the side of a van than a public facility.

Kellogg, who was wearing a whale-decorated tie when he announced the project at a press conference, shrugged off the criticism. “Everyone has opinions.”

Wyland, curly haired and casual, grinned and offered assurances that “when (the mural) is done, it will be something everybody can be proud of.”

A resident of Laguna Beach and Hawaii who goes scuba diving for inspiration, Wyland described himself as “very successful as artists go today. And I try to give back.”

He earns his living selling his paintings and posters of marine life and donates the labor for his murals, which he says are intended to raise the public’s environmental consciousness.

City officials said the Wyland work will save them a $125,000 repainting of the 30-year-old arena while livening up the concrete-clad convention center complex.

“Obviously, when he does these things, it brings recognition to him,” acknowledged Gary Voigt, the city’s director of general services. “But I don’t have a problem with that. I don’t think the city is being taken advantage of. I think it’s mutually advantageous. I think this is going to be a spectacular thing for the city.”

If all goes according to schedule, the circular white arena walls will be transformed in April, which is--not coincidentally--also the time of the annual Long Beach Grand Prix auto race that attracts thousands of spectators to the downtown area.

Voigt said the mural, which would be approximately 95 feet tall and 1,225 long, would be covered with a sealant to protect it against wear and graffiti.