DENVER-- Just below the booming heart of Denver, Jason Garcia wraps up days of painstaking work that's all about contrast.
=Along the Cherry Creek bike path near the convention center, his 50-foot mural of a towering bull snake contrasts the location in the heart of the city with the natural features of the creek.
Garcia points to the plants surrounding the snake as he applies paint to the wall.
"The foliage are chokecherries and so that's the namesake of the creek itself," Garcia said.
Contrast is captured in his style as well.
Bright metallic silver paint shines against a flat black wall.
And there's contrast in the story behind the images Garcia chose to create.
"It's a time of change and so I felt like a snake is a sort of really good symbol. The shedding of skin," Garcia said. "Right now, Denver is definitely in a time of Renaissance as far as development and progress."
The contrast there? Not everyone is part of that Renaissance.
Jason's audience includes people biking to six-figure jobs in glass high rises.
His audience also includes other people much less fortunate.
"Just yesterday, there's this guy Tom, who's shooting heroin, like 20 feet over that way," Garcia said. "This morning, there were two people sitting up here. This is someone's home."
For the wall's residents and visitors, he hopes his work will be uplifting.
"The pattern that I'm actually painting right now are Ojos de Dios, which are gods eyes," Garcia said.
The pattern can be found in native American art from our region as well as art from other parts of the world.
"They're placed in either homes as a blessing or even along a path as a way to invoke the spirit of somebody either being looked over or seeing something that's not visible to the human eye," Garcia said.
Some who pass by the piece will just see simply a new, pretty wall.
Those who stop to explore can find more that stands out in the picture.
Denver Arts and Venues commissioned the piece through its Urban Arts Fund.
It's one of 17 new murals this year that will be created in spaces plagued by graffiti throughout the city.
(© 2015 KUSA)
