In contrast to much of my work depicting the slow corrosion and eminent deaths of some of America's industrial heritage, I've also worked on documenting a different form of transitory buildings: those that are experiencing birth.
These paintings depict a variety of construction projects (including the initial demolishing of old buildings) in Denver. The Denver Art Museum (DAM) completed its new Daniel Libeskind designed Frederic C. Hamilton Building in 2006, after a three-year construction. The steel skeleton for this building was a fabulous structure, more akin to the form of a large ship than that of any normal building. I was fortunate in gaining access to this construction site, and took a huge number of photographs throughout the process, turning many into paintings. This led to the opportunity to create a mural-sized painting on one internal wall of the new wing, for the 2009–2010 DAM exhibition EMBRACE!, an exhibition of 17 international artists (read more in the Commissioned Works section). As follow up to construction paintings of the DAM are paintings of the construction of the new Clyfford Still Museum right next door.
Also, there are several works depicting the downtown demolition of the Rocky Mountain News Building and, on that site, the subsequent erection of the new Denver Justice Center, next door to the Denver Mint and City and State capitol buildings. These “DJC” paintings often include glimpses of those, and other iconic Denver buildings (see the large panoramic painting “Denver Justice Center Under Construction” in the Commissioned Works section).
—Rick Dula