On a weather beaten strip of industrial highway, Gamma “Gamma Gallery” Acosta nimbly climbs a ladder with a smartphone in one hand and a spray paint can in the other. The air reeks of dog food from the nearby Purina factory, as he sketches out a wispy human skull at the top of a pillar under Interstate 70. He tucks the spray can in a pocket of his cargo shorts and descends the ladder.
“All of these paintings are part of a bigger work,” he said, “now, I’m just free-styling. It will make more sense by the end of the day.”
His painting is part of a project called Duct-Work that was organized by the Denver Arts and Skills Center, Communication Infrastructure Group and several other organizations to beautify a segment of East 46th Street that passes under I-70. Over the years the small strip of road became neglected, as trash and bird droppings began accumulating. The artists were invited to paint there — with permission from the Colorado Department of Transportation—to bring some more color to a dreary road.
Out of the 20 artists that participated in the project, six of them were from the neighborhood, according to Kristen Cardenas, executive director of the Denver Arts and Skill Center Executive Director. The artists have been working long hours for the past few days to finish their paintings.
The murals have an expiration date. Soon, CDOT plans to begin construction on the Central 70 Project, which aims to revitalize the I-70 corridor that passes through the Elyria-Swansea neighborhood. The plan includes building a park over the strip where the artists painted their murals. Everything will be demolished at that time.
Local painter and sculptor Yiannis Bellis helped coordinate the event by inviting many of the artists to paint sections of the wall. He also curated Project Colfax, a public art project where about 30 artists painted a former car wash on East Colfax Avenue. Bellis said that the project has been in planning for eight months and he chose mostly local artists, because he “wanted a local feel.” During this project, “we got to do things to city infrastructure we normally wouldn’t do,” he said.
To prepare for her mural, Paige Madden searched around the site picking up refuse and discarded items. She spray painted each piece either blue or red and pasted them onto the wall using liquid nails. The resulting image is an anatomical heart made up of jeans, winter gloves, shoes and a vacuum hose, among other items. The area “was like a gold mine” for found objects, Madden said, “this mural project is bringing life to the area and I wanted to as well.”
Down the street, Thomas Scharfenberg placed some finishing touches on his mural: a gold-accented leopard print-like pattern. “People told me it looks like a tiger trout or a celestial zebra,” he said. He chose the bright colors to play off the yellow streetlights and said he lives two blocks away from the project site.
“We should have done this years ago,” Scharfenberg said.