Archives: Mural Map

For the Child Care Center at The YMCA Davaro-Comas fills the curved, recessed entrance with vibrant color, friendly flora and warm, positive imagery of growth to greet young people every day. The layers of blue-green freestyled foliage glow night and day, creating a sense of wonder and welcome. The composition, responsive to the form and purpose of this portal, speaks to both the artists’ skill and sense of play as well as the regular educational arts programming he provides to youth through his the non-profit Super-Stories of which Davaro-Comas is a co-founder.

Geddes Jones Paulsen, a Hudson Valley/Nantucket-based illustrator and tattoo artist collaborated with Raudiel Sanudo, an illustrator and painter who lives in Tijuana, Mexico to conjure up this fantastical creature. The eagle that is depicted was inspired by the eagle on the Mexican flag. Jones Paulsen added his signature clothing style. Their collaborative work has the distinction of being the first permanent O+ mural in Kingston.

Emily Roberts-Negron is a visual thinker who studies the nuances between shapes, patterns and architecture, and the relationships created there. Her piece on Wall Street incorporated all of these things one step further by using a mirrored medium, thus assuming the viewer and artist as part of the piece as well. NOTE: the work has been de-installed.

Kevin Freligh works as a graphic designer. He mixed the color of each panel of the wall individually for its subtle gradient effect. NOTE: This mural has been deinstalled.

In Mushroom Utopia, Goodnight Stetz incorporates beautifully rendered mushrooms that can be found in the Hudson Valley into a magical landscape of color, pattern, dynamism and surprise that speaks to the wonder to be found in the natural world.

On a facade looking over the YWCA playground, Gross renders plants and birds native to the Hudson Valley in a composition that speaks to diversity, the interdependence one has with their neighbor, being rooted in community, inclusiveness and a connection to the natural world. She states: “The landscape depicted is a transition to utopia; rewilding is about creating habitats/sanctuary and maximizing diversity. The birds serve additionally as symbols of joyful freedom and upward movement.”

Represented within a colorfield of yellows and greens, almost pixelated in appearance, this mural offers three food-related solutions to climate change that have the power to remove as much as 237 Gigatons of CO2 Equivalent from the Earth’s atmosphere. This abstract composition of yellow and green, accompanied by a small QR code where people can find out what the piece represents. Viewers are then prompted to take a single climate action that’s specific to Kingston/the Hudson Valley and the destination page of the QR will continue to be updated over time.

The Blooming Colors series, by Pau Quintanajornet, is a vivid reminder that life is a kaleidoscope of experiences, just like the ever-changing colors of nature. It is a spirited invitation to rejoice in the spectrum of life, to embrace the beauty of diversity, and to remember that our lives, like the petals of a flower, also bloom in unexpected and wondrous ways. The mural is a testament to the enduring beauty and hope that surrounds us, waiting to be discovered and the radiant spirit that is inherent in all of us.

Three Sisters was painted by an artist of mixed indigenous descent (Pomo/Karuk) on a building that is an extension of the Fair Street Reformed Church which sits on the ancestral lands of the Munsee Lenape People. The relationship between the artwork and its context aims to provide an opportunity for acknowledgment, the restoration of representation and reclamation of space on stolen land. In advance of the production of this mural, the Reverend of Fair Street Reformed Church acknowledged, with the artist and her congregation, the violence, erasure and genocide caused by the Christian Church in the Americas to cultures and people that lived in harmony with the land before colonization. A commitment to an ongoing acknowledgement of harm was essential to placing Three Sisters in this charged space. The artist states ” People imagine that the Indians that were symbiotic with this land are in the past, no longer among us. But we are still HERE.” 

Three Sisters, speaks to both a very personal reflection by the artist and the intergenerational trauma borne throughout Indigenous peoples of the Americas as a result of the loss of land, language, culture, identity and life resulting from the violence, oppression and genocide of colonization. The three indigenous women pictured play different roles in a pictorial imagining of what needs to happen for to heal; one is grieving (crying), one is connecting to themselves and the past (offering flower to a shadow self), and one is nurturing for the future (pouring tears of colored water onto plants that are food for the future). The mural acknowledges cycles of violence, loss and trauma carried through families and cultures that have been oppressed, murdered, disenfranchised, removed from land and resources, and victim to violence in all of its forms. It is also about the one person in any family who, perhaps, has the ability to heal by being a mediator between the past and future while also calling us, more broadly, to acknowledge our own role in the healing that is needed in our communities.

Lady Pink, the legendary “first lady of graffitti, returned to O+ Festival in 2021 to the location of her 2016 mural, wrapping her vision around the other side of the building occupied by Latinx-owned business Express Latinos. Kingston Strong is a tapestry woven from Kingston’s rich history and present-day charm. The history of Kingston is represented through its well-known landmarks. The people that make up this vibrant community are represented through bright, bold colors that reflect the artist’s signature palette.