DENVER — As the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) nears completion of the Central 70 project, some beautification measures are taking place along and above the new tunnel — and the community is taking note.
“They actually did an open call, so they had a bunch of artists apply over a period of time and then they narrowed it down to a handful of artists,” said Alexandrea Pangburn, a local artist selected to paint a mural on a huge generator that sits atop the new I-70 cap.
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but anytime you go under a bridge there’s always barn swallows just kind of diving around,” Pangburn said. “You’ll see them every once in a while around here, so I just wanted to bring them to a larger than life scale. I’ve got my design on here and just making sure that my colors are correct.”
Pangburn said she's proud of her latest work coming to life right in the heart of the city.
“The birds and the florals are all spray painted,” she said. “It’s a lot of practice. I had a lot of good mentors through my time.”
The new art is an effort to beautifyan area of town that has been traditionally underserved.
“And a lot of the board members are community members here,” Pangburn said. “They had a voice in choosing the art that went up. My art specifically caters to the area that I’m painting. Local, native species of flora, fauna. And I really enjoy clean lines against my realism, so I’m just super inspired by those color schemes.”
And that effort is being recognized by those in the community, who feel the art work is jazzing up what would otherwise be considered drab and dull.
“It looks beautiful,” said Juan Casillas who lives just a block away from the mural. “The color. It’s really popping out. It shows that Swansea is changing. It’s getting more beautiful and more clean.”
“I’m painting a huge generator,” Pangburn said. “I think it runs the fans and lights for the tunnel. And then there’s another artist, Bimmer Torres, he’s doing the other one and he starts in a couple weeks. People that have been passing are like, ‘Oh, it looks awesome. Great job. Thank you for doing this.’ So that always feels good as an artist.”
