Street artist Karl Addison paints the Federal RTD Station, Denver, Colorado 2016

Karl Addison has spent time in Denver, Colorado painting a large-scale public artwork titled, Doradus,  (113.85 meters wide x 6.7 meters high) on a new Federal Rail Transporation District (RTD) Station that opens this October, 2016.

Currently a building site, the Federal RTD Station is one of eight stations opening up in Denver this October. It has 11 miles of new track with each station requiring a different Contemporary Artist. A huge project taking graffiti and street art back to its former roots.

The project has taken Karl Addison over a year to produce. Karl first discussed the possibilities with fellow street artist David Walker at the beginning of 2015 at Turkish restaurant at Kotti in Berlin. He then finalised the concept in Malaysia, writing out the full concept, budget, timelines, sketches and past examples. Flew to Denver in March 2015 to give an interview of his concept to a panel of 18 plus people. Then waited patiently for the results…

“What I’m proud to share now is creating a public artwork that extends from being singular as a painting on wall – but into an environment. Something that treads on those lines of being an installation and an experiences.” Karl Addison

The majority of Karls work is rooted in colour theory and the blending of simple hatch lines within an analog process to create dimensions of colour and depth of what you are viewing. Karl works with local communities and the people who inhabit those places… taking the ownership and passion for their public artwork to the next level.

“I focus on this theme, working with an open-call system to get local people to play the roles of their space between the silhouettes that are place holders frozen in time and 3 larger giants who peer down in fascination. The giants are overlaid on a smooth gradient of color blending from a rich warmer purple, to soft creams and ice blues, to a deep rich purple into blue. The color transition goes into green and lighter subsection exceeding to the far left along Ashlar Stone facade.” Karl Addison

The colour theory was adopted from Japan’s train stations, incorporating the idea of a soothing atmosphere to help relieve stress from the “come and go.”

Each cinder block is painted one by one with the same colour blends as the gradient – a map of larger colour blocks so the viewer can start to translate the 90 colours used.

All photos are taken by photographer Henrik Haven who flew to Denver and spent two weeks and long hours to document the process and create beautifully stunning photos.

Photo credit Henrik Haven

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