Kendall Kippley

Location: 1035 Pearl Street on the West End Plaza

My artwork depicts abstracted, dramatic icescapes. I use cool, vibrant color palettes to represent melting, calving and shifting glaciers. I am deeply interested in the concept of the sublime in nature, and found that capturing the movement of ice in my paintings has helped me distill these personal awe inspiring moments. I recently returned from Iceland, where it was my intention to submerge myself in the arctic terrain and experience it as close as possible before it’s gone. After my adventure inside the Vatnajokull glacier, I felt compelled to create large scale work that would capture the magnitude of the ice as it quickly disappears from our earth. Our global society directly depends on the health of these icy environments, and I feel like I have a historical obligation and purpose to record them.

For Street Wise, my aim was to push the boundaries of any project I had done before and design an installation that aligned my values regarding climate change, with the focus of the festival - to encourage dialogue around social issues and create an artwork that amplified these discussions.

So I began to research, and I found the National Snow & Ice Data Collection Center, an organization within CU Boulder, that is well respected for it’s data collection of snow and ice movement in the arctic, including a partnership with NASA to collect aerial data. I reached out to see if they would be interested in supporting my project for Street Wise, and after getting in contact with Seamus Mcafee, their science communications manager, I was able to work directly with their research team to select a data set for my mural that illustrates the decline in the average sea ice extent over the last forty years.

Backed by information directly from the NSIDC, I created this mural using spray and latex paint to visualize the data that reveals climate change’s significant impact on social issues. It was my desire to create a bold and captivating mural that displays crucial information about these vanishing glaciers in a striking way. I have so much gratitude for the people and organizations that made this possible, and a huge thank you to West End Plaza for inviting me to use their beautiful building as a canvas for this work.

This mural is also endorsed by Protect Our Winters, a 501 nonprofit that focuses its efforts on legislation regarding climate change. The nonprofit, created in 2007 by professional snowboarder Jeremy Jones, strives to turn outdoor enthusiasts into climate advocates. It was my goal with this project to create an intersect of art, activism, and science.

Press Release:
https://www.colorado.edu/today/2021/09/15/nsidc-partners-local-mural-artist-illustrate-arctic-sea-ice-decline

POW:
https://protectourwinters.org

NSIDC:

https://nsidc.org