Colfax Canvas Mural Festival, Aurora, CO
DUALITY
community Project • 2024
DUALITY
A massive mural created for the Colfax Canvas Mural Festival in Aurora, featuring a bald eagle soaring over desert flowers, longhorn skulls, and cacti. The piece explores duality — life and death, desert and bloom — along one of Colorado's most historic corridors.
Gallery
Artist's Note
“Duality is a theme I keep returning to in my work. On Colfax, a street that has seen both glory and hardship, painting about the coexistence of opposites felt right. The eagle represents vision — the ability to see both sides of everything from above.”
— Rachel Dinda
Inspiration
Colfax Avenue has a gritty, authentic character that resists prettification. I wanted to honor that honesty while finding beauty in the tension between opposing forces — the skull and the flower, the predator and the bloom.
The Process
Festival painting is intense — you're working publicly with a deadline, and the audience watches every stroke. I laid down the large color fields on day one, built the eagle and skull forms on day two, then spent day three on details, flowers, and the textural elements that bring the desert landscape to life.
Community Impact
The mural has become one of the most photographed pieces from the Colfax Canvas festival. It's held up well in Colorado's harsh weather, and the building owner has told me it's increased foot traffic to adjacent businesses.
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