About the Solidarity Mobile Mural Project

THE SOLIDARITY MOBILE MURAL PROJECT

The Solidarity Mobile Mural Project features 18 murals by local Black artists that were placed throughout Downtown Colorado Springs, Old Colorado City and Manitou Springs. 

Presented in partnership with My Black Colorado and the Cultural Office of the Pikes Peak Region in honor of National Arts and Humanities Month, the project showcased the wide breadth of artistic talent and perspective among Black creatives living and working in the Pikes Peak Region. 

The artwork in this exhibit reflects on the artists’ lived experience, their perception of beauty and their aspirations for the future of this community. They also raise questions of access: Whose artwork can we see in galleries, in museums or in public places? Who has access? Why or why not?

FEATURED ARTWORKS
Featured artworks were chosen through a competitive request-for-qualifications process juried by Brian Elyo, Lisa Villanueva, and Floyd D. Tunson. Interested in the Solidarity Mobile Mural Project? Please email experience@creativecircuit.org. 

JURY/SELECTION PANEL

The panel of jurors for the Solidarity Mural encompasses artistic achievement and local engagement in community, with emphasis on thoughtful representation of the Pikes Peak Region’s diverse cultural landscape.

Brian Elyo has lived in the region for twenty-plus years and has helped several community arts organizations with a variety of efforts; most recently the Knob Hill Urban Arts Committee, the What-If Festival organizing team and Concrete Couch’s development team. Professionally he helps architects design schools and churches. You may also see him performing experimental music at your local DIY spot, or for an exhibit opening at a gallery; sometimes utilizing slo-motion nature footage he films around his Old Colorado City home.

Lisa Villanueva is a certified teacher, entrepreneur and an Urban Eclectic Artist with a passion for urban youth development. She is the founder and director of Artivism and Lategro, grassroots urban arts and education movements existing to educate and eradicate any fallacies created to disenfranchise young adults’ place in society. When she is not teaching art at Bemis School of Art at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center at Colorado College, Villanueva works to empower youth and disenfranchised communities with the tools of community pride and self-sufficiency. She holds a studio at Cottonwood Center for the Arts called EthnicCity.

Floyd D. Tunson

Floyd Tunson is among the most highly regarded and influential artists in the Rocky Mountain region. He has achieved a rich and diverse body of work via media such as painting, sculpture, photography, and printmaking – often combining the language of these various media in single works. Tunson received his BA from Adams State College in 1969. Over his career earning a reputation as one of the region’s most influential art teachers for three decades while simultaneously creating his own work and exhibiting nationally. Tunson’s art is included in the collections of the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center at Colorado College, the Denver Art Museum, the Kaiser-Permanente Corporation, the Walter O. Evans Collection of African-American Art, and many private collections nationwide.

POSITION STATEMENT

The Avenue Creative Circuit (Downtown, Old Colorado City and Manitou) represents our region’s highest concentration of historic and creative experiences – museums, galleries, boutiques, businesses, public art and more. We acknowledge humbly that our shared history also reflects systemic racism, cultural appropriation, and economic inequality. We vow to recognize these past injustices and to work together intentionally to create a new heritage of confronting and correcting those exclusions now and in the future. As a uniquely dense and powerful economic corridor spanning two cities, three districts, and a collection of unique neighborhoods, we commit ourselves to confronting systemic racism and developing more equitable access to opportunity for our communities.