This colour series was created initially as social photography for Wayward Farm, a small-scale market farm run by Brie Pointer and her partner in Baden. The bold, bright and fun colours accentuate the true beauty of freshly-picked, raw vegetables. Don’t forget to eat your veggies! “Initially, the series was going to be called, Eat The Rainbow, but we didn’t want to be sued by Skittles (even though this rainbow is way more delicious!)”


In The Clouds

Ellison’s Bistro

Abe aims to breakdown complex, multidimensional beings into their most basic elements. Her painted murals for a number of clients include: Shopify, Inkbox Toronto, Communitech, and the Cities of Kitchener and Waterloo.


Downtown Kitchener Outdoor Mural

Across from Kitchener City Hall

This work integrates elements of the industrial and natural in the recognizable form of an over-sized maple key. Through this simple and graceful form, we are invited to consider our relationship with the environment. Dave Hind is Brantford-based and his work frequently combines a roughly hewn quality with elegant forms derived from landscape.


Silver Key

Cambridge Sculpture Garden

Noted artist Ed Zelenak designed this controversial twisted orange fibreglass sculpture that sits on the lawn outside of the old courthouse, given as a gift from the province in 1980. The piece has been part of our community landscape for 40 years with little information provided.


Aporia

Waterloo Corporation Archives

The King Street Theatre, similar to most contemporary theatres, does not have a stage curtain. Nevertheless, the curtain remains a powerful symbol of the border between everyday life and the heightened experience that is the theatre. The image of a curtain embodies the anticipation, the excitement, the sense of magic and transformation that lie at the core of the theatrical experience. Since Theatre & Company has since closed, this artwork serves as a bit of a historical document of what was once there.


Between the Acts

Mindsounds is a photography series inspired by individuals living with mental illness. As most of us either live with or know a family member, friend or co-worker who lives with a mental illness, it is a subject that is very relevant and important to everyone. For inspiration and direction, individuals living with mental illness have been asked to provide a word or metaphorical phrase that describes how they feel about living with their condition. It is with the hope that Mindsounds will create awareness, and perhaps give viewers the opportunity to experience, feel and understand this often misunderstood and taboo subject.


Mindsounds

Apollo Cinema (indoors)

This scultural ceramic relief, 2.5 metres long and made of 116 tiles, is filled with sculpted creatures adapted from the traditional poem by Olive A. Wadsworth entitled Over the Meadow in the Sand in the Sun. The turtles, ducks, owls and beavers are distributed among arching trees in this fairy tale landscape, which also melds images from other childhood fables, bringing a sense of whimsy and imagination to the piece. "A canopied environment hides imaginary yet familiar creatures and critters found in nature and children's lore," Moyle says of his artwork. "It opens a window to discovery."


Over the Meadow

Kinsmen Children's Centre

Integrated into the building’s architecture and fittings, the terrazzo and glass insets begin at the front door and continue along the lobby floor, ending as an element of the reception counter. The work flows through the space, meandering, as the Grand River moves through our region. Located inside the community centre.


The Grand River

Stanley Park Community Centre

Jordan Warmington’s tattooing style, and use of flat and punchy colours, are clearly translated into this mural. Bold lines and a four-colour palette allow for a captivating piece that highlights a little something for everyone and creates a depth and sense of movement.


Goudies Lane Nº5

 Goudies Lane (entrance through Queen Street North) 

Constructed as if reading an old newspaper, this piece showcases the German heritage of the City. Capturing a couple dancing, and melding both historic and present-day images. The colour palette used is influenced by German culture, with rich earthy tones and aspects showcased in traditional German clothing. The work is encased with a decorative border that lets the piece blend organically onto the market wall.


German Heritage

Market Lane entrance to the Kitchener Market

Artist, Frances Gage is well known for her commemorative sculptures. Jenny Wren is a national monument to the women who served in Canada’s Navy during World War II in the Women’s Royal Canadian Naval Service. Between 1942 and 1945 over 6,000 Wrens from across Canada came to what was then Galt for their basic training before going to their wartime assignments.


Jenny Wren

Cambridge Libraries & Galleries, Queen’s Square

“Healthy Habit are mirrored from one another. Our community helps to inspire, share, and encourage good food. Food is our future. Let’s eat well to live well.”


Healthy Habit

Heit & Hope Lane

“Strata” is a suspended series of ceramic birds in the community centre’s reception area. The flock flies high in an elevated round skylight feature. 


Strata

Country Hills Community Centre

Taken from the insignia of the Waterloo Regional Police, the two animal figures of the lion and the lamb have been interpreted in a unique and different way. The powerful and strong, but relaxed lion is posed lying on its side, its tail moving languidly, signifying the composure of a contented cat. The newborn lamb, while vulnerably close, is unworried as it looks upon the lion. The lamb stands for youth, getting its first shaky legs of independence, as do many students who enter university life in Waterloo. The lion represents community and establishment, patient to let the youthful lamb explore its independence, but watchful and protective. The sculpture presents an overall positive message with elements of peace, prosperity and protection.


The Lion and the Lamb

Waterloo Regional Police Service, North Division

An aluminum canoe rides the grassy, landscaped waves of the park, not far from the water. Inside the canoe, a sheet of mirror polished stainless steel reflects the sky above and appears like water from a distance. With this installation, the artist wanted to reconfigure the park’s inherent elements with this vessel of reflection.


The Canoe

Victoria Park

Banner

Kitchener City Hall, ground floor lobby 

“Six Miles Deep refers to language in the Haldimand Proclamation. As the COVID-19 pandemic arrived, I began the project to examine my responsibilities as a white settler living on stolen lands. Today, the Six Nations of The Grand River retain about five per cent of lands promised them via the proclamation. I hope to raise settler awareness that we must meet Calls to Action outlined in Truth and Reconcilliation Commission of Canada’s (TRC)’s 2015 Final Report. How do we sincerely acknowledge and honour The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP)? How might we embody a present where we do the hard work required towards true reconciliation and envision a future where land is part of that? Because it must be.”


Blood in the Water (Six Miles Deep)

Queen Shawarma & Kabab

This mural uses a colour palette that resonates with strength, honour and humble caring feelings. The story told through the piece leads the viewer’s eyes to the centre and back out to the other side of the mural. The movement allows for every element to be showcased in its own unique way.


Downtown Presence

Celestial Mechanics is a large scale architecturally site-specific wall drawing. Wilson’s drawings flirt with abstraction and recall macro views of botanical and astronomical forms. They take on the appearance of intimate, colourful, doodles that have been magnified to larger proportions. 


Celestial Mechanics

This three-part installation uses two images based on photographs of the site as it appeared in May, 2008. The key sculptural component combines these images and mathematical principles to produce a work of perspective called anamorphic art. First popularized in the 16th and 17th centuries, anamorphic art creates visual illusions to entertain and delight viewers. Components of the sculpture are a 13 foot diameter paved circle (ceramic tile) and a central 8 foot pillar of highly polished stainless steel. The photographic images are fired into the tiles for permanence. While the images appear distorted at ground level, when viewed at an angle in the reflecting cylinder, they become recognizable. In addition, graniteclad walls at either end of the park are engraved with text and design motifs that echo the central sculpture element. 


Recollection & Transformation of Memory

Speaker's Corner

Nine mobiles installed across the airport terminal lawn are identical in form, each with two branches of leaves poised above a tall slender brushed stainless steel pole. The poles ascend in height from 10 to 14 feet, creating upward movement across the site. The two branches atop each pole are constructed so that they move with the slightest breeze. The leaves, graduating in six from six to eight inches, are made from hammered brass treated with a blue-green patina. Aluminum light posts line the walkway to the terminal building. Each supports a stainless steel box with a plaque attached. The plaques are silk-screened with text or images using enamel ink. Each plaque depicts an event from the rich history of the airport, such as "Mary Weber, 20 years old, learned to fly at Lexington Field and became the fifth woman in Canada to receive a pilot's licence."


Field of Winds

Region of Waterloo International Airport Terminal Building

An almost sketchbook-like style, this mural provides a nice punch of contrast with the simple black and white figures planting and taking care of nature. Along with three children, the poem helps tell the story to bring strong balance and relatable qualities when v


Goudies Lane Nº2

This piece called Octopus Garden is part of Skelton’s Flowers of the Sea body of work. The artist loves the process of creating using form and colour, and the freedom to paint without justifying a reason or purpose — leaving interpretation open to the viewer. Skelton’s artwork is deeply influenced by her past: using brilliant tones of saturated colour that reflect the heat of Africa, as well as colours that reflect the softer hues of the ever changing Atlantic. 


Flowers of the Sea: Octopus Garden

Kitchener’s historic Bullas sculptures were commissioned circa 1940 by Mr. Roy Bullas for installation in a fountain in front of his furniture store on Charles Street. Canadian artist Helen Waimel Robertson created two sea goddesses riding on the backs of dolphins. Although her inspiration for this commission is not known, she may have been thinking of the Nereids who were daughters of Nereus, a sea god of Greek mythology. The sculptures’ style is influenced by the Art Deco period’s clean, modern lines. Clay models were used to create molds and the sculptures were then cast in concrete containing a quartz aggregate. Over fifty years of weathering in outdoor locations have left the sculptures in a fragile state. Helen Waimel Robertson (1917 – 2002) was sponsored by the Kiwanis Club to attend the Ontario College of Art in 1934 where she completed the five year program in three years, receiving a Governor General’s Gold Medal Award. Robertson was a member of the Sculptors’ Society of Canada. Her works are in the collections of private and public institutions in Canada and the United States. The Bullas sculptures are the only examples of figurative public art from the mid20th Century period in the City’s public art collection. They were donated to the City in 1998 by Susan and David Kachik. The Board of Directors at Centre-in-the-Square kindly permits the display of the sculptures.


The Bullas Sculptures

Centre in the Square

“As a young photographer, I had always wondered what it would be like to see this city through a stranger’s eyes. Years later, in 2020, that opportunity came when local photographer, Taylor Jones created “DTK Photo Club” to host photo walks. These welcoming gatherings built community while engaging with the DTK landscape to capture the images that define it. Using a double exposure technique on Photo Walk #002, I captured this photo to channel the feeling of fresh eyes on an old city, and to celebrate the new generations of photographers who will help tell the stories of DTK.”


DTK Photo Walk

DNA Screen Printing

This simple, yet powerful piece showcases multiple stories within one frame. Marilyn Koop captured a simplistic style to convey strong emotion through relatability, togetherness and the importance of sharing. Peaking into four windows, the viewer gets a glimpse of “the power of many”, paired with a colour palette that is warm and inviting. The viewer can’t help but be influenced by this mural to lean on each other.


The Value of One the Power of Many

MacDonald designed and built more than 20 gardens across the country, and for each space, he drew from Indigenous ancestral practices contributing to his extensive botanical knowledge. MacDonald understood that native pollinators are particularly attracted to native plants in order to eat, rest and breed. In the catalogue for the 2003 Shore/Lines exhibition, MacDonald explained that “(A)ll of the native plants that butterflies use have traditional medicinal uses.” MacDonald’s gardens provide a rich refuge for medicinal perennial plants (which return every spring) native to the region, butterflies and other pollinators, inviting audiences to take time for contemplating and imagining healthier and more reciprocal futures. The best time to view these plants is between June and October annually.


Planting One Another

KWAG

In homage to firefighters: the figure etched in glass is an imagined link in a chain of bucket-carrying civilians who were the volunteer root of the Berlin Fire Brigade, founded in 1854.


Floating Window

 Kitchener Fire Department Headquarters 

This series of work was inspired during a global pandemic by thoughts around travelling to another planet, universe, space, light, fantasy and the curiosity of the unknown. This is an attempt at exploring the curious spaces that the artist often intrudes into while daydreaming. The artist is making an inquiry of the innumerable layers of the world — that all living beings and non-living objects coexist around universal movements and dynamics. Through these digital works, the artist is creating and translating that feeling of a traveller, from many hidden moons ago, now and in the future.


Traveller, Many Hidden Moons Ago...

The design in the Queen Street corridor helps mark the importance of the Queen Street and King Street intersection as the centre of downtown Kitchener, and signals the space is a place for people, not just cars. It also helps to provide traffic calming and connectivity for pedestrians crossing Queen Street via either Halls Lane or Goudies Lane. This work is part of the Queen Street reconstruction that includes the redesign of Vogelsang Green. The design itself is a colourful, abstract piece that works in a series of icons related to the area, including crowns symbolizing King and Queen streets, a heart to symbolize the heart of downtown, opera masks and more.


Queen Street Placemaking Project

 Intersection of Queen Street and King Street

Canna Cabana

Canna Cabana door

"My piece is a dynamic look into the progressive shift towards feminine power and equality that has been growing ever more present in our modern world. It would be an honorarium of sorts towards some of the most influential and important female artists of all time. Women who fought for the life they believed they deserve, women who stood up against traditional gender roles and limitations to share their vision for a better world, and women who used their voice with courage and love in the face of adversity and hardship. The piece features artists such as Frida Kahlo, Artemisia Gentileschi, Georgia O’Keefe, Augusta Savage, Yayoi Kusama, and more. It highlights the multi-cultural diversity of such artists and focus on empowering ALL women in this regard. Furthermore it would be in part an acknowledgement towards their contributions to the art world, pop culture, and how they shifted our perspective in a way that their male counterparts could not. Imagery includes elements from each artist’s unique style and techniques? ie. Frida’s self-portrait illustrative and symbolic style, Georgia’s flowers and Yayoi’s silver balls."  
\- Natasha Rose


SV Uptown Double Door

Noted Canadian artist, Haydn Llewellyn Davies created this work in British Columbia during the Wood Sculpture of the Americas symposium in 1977. In 1985, the sculpture was featured in Community Sculpture, an exhibition commemorating the Riverbank Development Project. In 1996 the work was moved to its present location.


Symposium Piece for Eva

This piece is a hopeful message of growth and rebirth — a peaceful communion between technology and nature through a respectful balance, represented by the recycling symbol and careful use of colour. Promoting this Region’s existing conservation on technology for good, Smoky hopes to inspire the community to explore Halls Lane in Downtown Kitchener.


Halls Lane Nº3

Halls Lane (behind DNA Screen Printing)

Comparison: Comparing your balancing act to others never made anything easier. 


Comparison

“Mended” is a symbol of togetherness, being joint as one, in company of and being of many. There is no direct subject, and instead have many “little people” with no specifications. Cotrell felt this meaning works well for 44 Gaukel because it is a space where many come together – something like a well-mended community in a sense.


Mended

This bronze relief, 14-metres long, is imprinted with 2000 thumbprints: half from Kitchener residents, half from residents of Berlin, Germany as a symbol of goodwill and friendship between the two cities. Located along the outdoor ramp at the front of City Hall.


The Millennium Thumbprints

Kitchener City Hall, outside Civic Square entrance

In the alleyway at the side of his coffee shop, Show & Tell, Andrew Thom expanded and created this piece to run the entire length of the building. This piece brought together by three smaller pieces brings exploration to letter-forms. It accents, juxtapositions between flat, monochromatic colour palettes seen in the lettering and 3-dimensional atmosphere of the background. Thom’s typographical and shape-driven mural gives viewers an opportunity to come to their own conclusion on the context of the piece as a whole. His use of heavy line work to create the illusion of a light source allows the piece to pop off the wall. It’s this form of art that inspires Thom to continue exploring different avenues, letter-forms, colour and artistic culture.


30 Ontario Alley

Show & Tell

The artist, winner of a national public art competition, has created an original polished granite sculpture which pays tribute to local history and to the earliest inhabitants of the founding communities. All elements are drawn from the natural significance of the regions and historical communities of Galt, Preston, Hespeler and Blair which were amalgamated in 1973 into the City of Cambridge.


indigena domain

Cambridge City Hall

The Ectospore series explores subterranean mystery and interconnectivity through polaroid photographs of mushrooms Simmons grew during the COVID-19 pandemic. The images are incredibly soft and mysterious, allowing for the mushrooms to seep with a spore-like boundarylessness. The mushrooms are lit with the grow lights used in their cultivation. The hi-res scans reveal the contamination of the artist’s body when working with the mushrooms, showing small scratches, fibres from her clothing and actual spores from the mushrooms themselves. Together, these form hybrid images.


Ectospore

Landscape colour field #17 is part of a series of work that explores the ephemerality of clouds. In this piece, Tataryn contemplates both chaos and order in his composition and reflects on the patterns and transformations of these weather shape shifters. Order is mapped by the strict and precise mathematical geometry applied to the execution of the lighted tubes; chaos manifests in the blended techniques of Venetian glass blowing and traditional neon tube processing where the shapes take their form by the fluid movements of the craftspeople.

Landscape colour field #17 contains gestural white and blue neon at the top of the composition that references cloud formations. The bottom half of the composition includes shades of green and yellow and references the grasses and foliage in the surrounding landscape of Silver Lake.


Landscape Colour Field #17

Visitor Information Centre at Waterloo Park

To the artist, The Waterloo Bell stands as a tribute to the industrial history of Waterloo Region, its founders and its work ethic, while reflecting on the struggle for balance between faith and science in our modern world. Johannes Kepler, to whom the Bell pays tribute, was a German mathematician, astronomer, and astrologer who played a key role in the 17th century scientific revolution. At a time when faith and science were so intertwined, Kepler's work reflects a balance between his own personal beliefs and his pursuit of science.

To many, The Waterloo Bell represents a call to gather, celebrate, and commune as citizens in a public gathering space designed to welcome, host, and entertain local residents and visitors from far and wide.


Waterloo Bell (Bell for Keppler)

Waterloo Public Square

This was created for anyone who needs this right now: Sending love <3


LOVE

Zero Waste Bulk

Zero Waste Bulk door

Aspiring Orchard is a nod to the city's expanding infrastructure with a carefully crafted homage to our agricultural past. Paleczny deliberately reminds citizens that the site once functioned as Wolfe Orchards. Images from Martin's Orchards in Waterloo Region can been in the laser cut steel and bestow reverence to the past uses of the land.

The interplay of past and present speak to the importance of environmental sustainability. Development is fundamental for our future, but the sustainability of our environment is equally important. Resources come about at a cost, but if we continue to acknowledge and seek solutions, we will ensure that the impact on the earth is lessened.


Aspiring Orchard

The sculptural work is an intricate tree with its branches and roots fused together to create a sphere. It represents a senior person's maturity and wisdom, the fertility and growth of new mothers and children, the renewal of life, and the immortality of human existence. The Tree of Life artwork depicts the interconnectedness of all life and the livelihood of the spirit within us, which is the essence of personhood.


The Tree of Life

Sunnyside Campus

What does it mean to be in Canada, in this place, on this land? This installation explores the multiplicity of experiences and perspectives, which speak to what it means to be here, as the nation continues to reflect on the complex issue of its collective identity. How are our views of this place shaped by our journeys through this place? What ideas and hopes do we have for our community and identity as we look to the future? Responses were collected from the community about what it means to be here — some celebratory, some critical and some reflective. Each poster represents a single thought from one of the community responses. Together, they form a visual collection that reflects the diversity of views our community holds. There are moments of stark contrast as well as emergent themes, all reflecting the complex and ever-changing nature of what this place means to the people who inhabit it.


In This Place

This work by Lisa Neighbour was commissioned by Cambridge Galleries with the assistance of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts and the provincial Investment in the Arts program. Her ‘Eye’ overlooking Queen’s Square has become an identifier and a beacon for the Libraries & Galleries main location.


Eye on the Square

A collaboration between August and Luke Swinson. Both artists are heavily inspired by nature and their Indigenous heritage. The stylized landscape represents the peaceful countryside of their native land.


AOK Oniijaaniw (Doe)

Halls Lane

Celebrating 14 years of providing support to newly arrived refugees this mural is filled with vibrant colours and the narration of a strong cultured community. Spanning the length of the building, this mural allows you to gravitate to the warm colours, inviting scenery and sense of community.


Stories of New Beginnings

This 44 x 52 inch portrait of a solitary pine is so wonderfully shaped by its years of bargaining out an existence with the granite, the sun and the seasons. There is a winter gale howling across the white frozen lake buffeting it. Then the spring’s gushing deluges of moisture push new growth, only to be stilled by June. July’s summer miserly droughts its growth again — stilted, twisting it’s limbs, forming what has, for the artist, become a sculpted beauty


Blueberry Pine

Thom works with trending and popular colour palettes accompanied by letter exploration, deviating from traditional understandings of how letter-forms work with each other. Thom pushes the boundaries of what letter-forms and light sources can do. He enjoys the whole process of exploration and lets himself and viewers rationalize and interpret his work from their own perspectives. Whether that is through following the map of movement designed by Thom or enjoying the colour integration with its surroundings, his pieces are yours to discover.


Goudies Lane Nº4

Kingsdale is seen as a hub of connections, relationships, and family activities and, situated as it is within a triangle of major roadways, it is a hidden treasure house of opportunities and possibilities. To respond to the idea of the centre as a treasure house, glass artist Gordon Wright created 39 hand-crafted glass discs that are suspended from the ceiling of the building in front of a bank of windows. The glass roundels, like unique jewels, glow in swirled rainbow colours.


Kingsdale Spirals

Kingsdale Community Centre foyer

“My love for art is organic. Grassroots. Bottom-up. No academic distortion or influence. Art is not ALL about technique or process or history... it’s about emotion. Sometimes it’s about ripping open your heart and bleeding.” “And sometimes it’s just about becoming lost in the beauty of the moment. It’s ALWAYS about sharing what comes.”


Umbrellas Charles Street Terminal

KW Bookstore

This digital art piece is a glimpse at the basic emotions people see in the mirror when they look at themselves. Emotions are complex and ever-shifting, especially when you’re viewing yourself. Mirrors reflect back what everyone sees played across your face on a daily basis. Do you find yourself staring in the mirror at night and seeing these emotions?


Inner Reflection

Located on the site of the former Labatt Brewery, John Labatt Barley Field pays homage to past uses of the land as well as the city's agricultural, economic, and rural origins. The sculpture consists of 61 hand-forged steel stalk forms. The forms are topped with cut steel and copper heads representing barley plants.

In addition to brewing and agriculture, the sculpture makes a powerful reference to the disappearance of nature in the urban landscape. The stalks are "planted" in a protective circle formation which stands as a tribute to the community's strength while issuing a notice of the structure's permanency.


John Labatt Barley Field Sculpture

Path between Park St and Freemont St

This functional concrete sculpture welcomes visitors to the library. The bench portion is supported by upright book forms. 


Bookends

Grand River Stanley Park Community Library

This sculpture celebrates Kitchener's traditions of manufacturing, retail, hospitality and community symbolized by the chair. Combining the words Anima and Animus forms the title, a fusion of soul and spirit, hospitality and business. 


Animanimus

Corner of Madison Ave S and King St E

Photo mural based on forty portraits, some of neighbourhood volunteers, organized in the form of a patchwork quilt. Celebrating the cultural diversity of the neighbourhood. Located in an interior hallway of the community centre. 


Place of Friendship 

Chandler Mowat Community Centre 

King Street Trio

King Street Trio door

Rojas’ designs are inspired by a mix of Latin American muralists and Folk Art Style. Her painting presents us with a magical, peaceful, serene world with candour and imaginative spontaneity. She explores vivid colours, emotions, and the fusion of ceramic details. The essence and the character of Rojas’ style sprouts from the innocence of the mind, and simplicity, which removes constraints and allows more liberty in composition — transmitting a sense of happiness and surprise in a world as though seen by people for the first time.


Welcome // We are all the Same // Grandchildren’s Joy

YW Thrift Boutique

City Owayseug which means “city animals” in Anishinaabemowin is a reminder, in the heart of the city, of the relationship and responsibility we have to nature. Using the street as a canvas, Swinson’s art contributes to an evolving transition of Gaukel Street into a pedestrian-first street and public space.


City of Owayseug

Gaukel Street

“My collection of photographs are a visual representation of how I view ‘the little things’. Despite seeming small or unimportant, it’s the little things that ultimately drive our day-to-day emotions. These images show the details of nature in an upclose and personal form that may not be seen if not captured.”


Individuality

In January 1962, artist Jack Bechtel was commissioned to create a mural to decorate the lounge of the new main branch of the Kitchener Public Library (KPL). KPL received financial assistance from the Canada Council for this project. The artist worked for six months to create the mural. To work undisturbed, Bechtel worked from library closing until dawn. The paint chosen for this piece was an acrylic polymer emulsion which should last as long as does the wall. The final mural measures 12.5 x 36 feet. The theme of the mural is man’s historical striving for knowledge. It was officially unveiled on November 2, 1962. Jack Bechtel died from cancer in September 1966. His best-known work was considered to be “Enlightenment”, his 560 square foot mural at KPL. 


Enlightenment

Kitchener Public Library, Main Branch

As a collective, we explore the mysterious power of visual art through painting murals, with a focus on converting city streets into an immersive gallery. With spray paint as our primary tool, our work is inspired by tropical themes, musical experiences and the human connection. As artists who are primarily painting walls in a public space, we place great value in the subtle way that murals can enhance the visual environment of a neighbourhood. Our goal with this design is to draw attention to the harmony that exists between the urban and natural landscape and compliment the sense of community that Kitchener already has to offer. We aim to create a landmark that locals would be proud to have in their neighbourhood, while simultaneously welcoming a bright future.


Synergy

KW Wholesale

An illustration combining a favourite activity and a favourite bird. You don’t have to go far to be on the lake or to see these magnificent birds.


Canoe and Heron

YWCA Kitchener Waterloo

“Moments”, the new public art work at McLennan Park, is a 5-metre tall aluminum sculpture. Four figures are grouped together: cyclist, skateboarder, walker, and ice skater, to celebrate the spirit of recreation at McLennan Park.


Moments

McLennan Park

This installation celebrates the Region's commitment to energy efficiency. The sculpture contains 12 shimmering metal shafts that rise from different angles on the grassy hill in front of the Region's Operations Centre. The solar powered and interactive installation gathers energy from the sun during the day to light up at night. Members of the public can view and even choreograph nightly light performances at [www.solarcollector.ca](http://www.solarcollector.ca/).


Solar Collector

Region of Waterloo Operations Centre

McCabe's

McCabe's door

Brubey Hu’s work explores architectural space, colour theory, memory and translation through the lens of duality both visually and conceptually. “A duality that exists within a body, does not necessarily exist as a pair of oppositions.” The pair can also be complementary to each other or live at the same time as coexistence. Being bilingual and living-in-between, translation is a process that she frequently engages with. Through subtractive simplification, her works are her attempt to discuss the notions of consensus and reconciliation. They transcend flat images or physical space and objects, and document introspective moments.


We are the Same Beings

Halls Lane (behind Bobby O’Brien’s)

This collaboration between these two groups showcases strong storytelling and narration. Accompanied by strong lines, movement, colour, shapes and gestalt, this massive mural has been a staple of Downtown Kitchener since 2014. Tapping into cultural references and imagery, this piece allows for imagination and inspiration to showcase at the forefront. 


The Condor and the Eagle

 Halls Lane (on the side of Grand Trunk Saloon),

Today the synthetic environment rivals nature as a driving force in our lives. In Urban Series: Progress, the foreground is dominated by 20th century urban architecture, while the arches and battlements of past eras, seen in the middle ground, are in better harmony with the glimpses of the natural world seen in the background. We seem to have lost that balance. Progress is a cautionary piece indicating a need to keep our organic origins in sight...otherwise we could progress to extinction.  
Gloria Kagawa, 1989	


Urban Series - Progress

Kitchener City Hall, 2nd floor lobby

Living under an unsustainable system hurts, and Kundu has found that the only appropriate response to our current ways of living is heartbreak. It is a chronic condition, fuelled by an anxious, over-worked, exhausted population. Kundu feels they are part of this population, as are you. Finding humour in our stories is an act of resistance, and of defiance. It is an act of hope. Heartbreak takes time, and love and patience. We can give each other that. And these stories, they feel they can give to you.


HOUSE FIRE (Chronic Heartbreak) & ALRIGHT

Inspired by the sounds, smells, sights, tastes, atmosphere and culture of the market on a busy Saturday morning, Beno created a mural that spans the width of Eby Street. Tapping into what Beno’s visits to the market are like, she utilizes her style of abstraction and colour theory, line, unity, shape and movement to represent the vibrancy of the market — capturing the organicness, and seasonality of it all. 


The Market Walk

Eby Street Crossway

The Origami Goose was inspired by the theme of self-directed learning, play, and an interconnected story of past and present. The piece speaks to the artist's childhood with many hours spent connecting with books in her neighbourhood library including several books featuring the traditional Japanese art of paper folding, also known as origami. Canada geese are indeed a prominent fixture in Waterloo. The Origami Goose pays homage to local goose populations (especially those who reside on University of Waterloo campus), while also referencing the in the architecture of the site as the surrounding structures seek to connect with the natural landscape.


Origami Goose

Stork Family YMCA and John M. Harper District Public Library

"My mural is brightly colourful, eye catching with both large and powerful elements, and intricate detail that viewers can get lost in. The style, like my own, walks the line between realism, surrealism and illustrative/graphic elements so that it’s both relatable and striking. The elements tell a story about the community and our ecosystem to inspire people to see the world through new eyes and appreciate the beauty in nature and the beauty in our fellow humans. I want this piece to project a sense of hope, joy and lightheartedness after all we have been through this year as a community, so that people have something to make them smile on their way to work or school."   
- Robin Lightwalker


Public Art in Waterloo Region