Gradation

Artist(s): Lynnette Postuma

Producer: StreetARToronto

Completed: 2017

Gradation was the winning design for the “Create Your Path” mural competition hosted by the City of Toronto’s Street ART (StART) program in 2017. The 12,000 sq’ artwork is located on the West Toronto Railpath across from the Bloor Station of GO + UP transit.

It transformed a banal building facade through a series of successive colour changes – painting 14,508 cinder blocks individually and distinctly in variations of blue and green – in order to better integrate the building into its adjacent landscape and create a dynamic mural as varied as the movement of its surroundings.

The vegetation adjacent to the wall played a key role in the overall design. The paint formed an outline of the existing trees, shrubs and vines growing on the wall to become a “growth marker” or means to monitor the progress of vegetation over time.

The region of West Toronto Railpath has always been a route of conveyance – historically as a portage route (called the “Carrying-Place Trail”), then a railway and now as a recreation trail – and continues to be a path that knits together varying neighbourhoods of the city. The Mohawk term meaning “the place where the trees grow over the water” refers to this past and present history by informing the colour progression of this art installation.

For More Information: https://www.lynnettepostuma.ca/#/gipfel/