Whether traveling by bus, bike, skateboard, or on foot, Kingston’s a city on the go.
Local artist Abby Gowland, BFA ’24, captured the city’s spirit of urban movement in her new mural, Kingston in Motion. The piece stretches across 10 panels and was installed above the Robert Bruce Memorial Parking Garage on Bagot St. on Sept. 17.
To observe the mural from across the street at the bustling Downtown Transfer Point, I craned my neck to see past the buses arriving and departing around me. In this way, the piece’s setting contributed to its emotional impact; it depicts colourful renditions of Kingstonians biking, walking dogs, sitting on benches, and boarding the city’s blue-and-orange Kingston Transit buses.
The mural’s subjects are joyful, tending to plants and smiling at one another. The first panel depicts Gowland herself on a bike, flashing a thumbs-up with paintbrushes poking out of her backpack. Her cat, Lazuli, sits in the bicycle’s basket.
“There’s a warmth and friendliness to this community that has stayed with me. I carried that feeling into the mural design,” Gowland wrote in a statement to The Journal. Originally from Courtice, ON, Gowland “fell in love” with Kingston during her time at Queen’s. “My experience here’s been incredibly positive. Kingston is where my career as an artist truly began,” she wrote.
Gowland’s journey to installation began when she was shortlisted by a selection panel of local, professional artists from 41 original applicants. Her detailed proposal and mock-ups were shared publicly on Get Involved Kingston, and after residents voted on designs, a jury made final decisions based on “artistic merit and public input,” Gowland wrote.
Finding out she’d been commissioned was “surreal,” Gowland wrote. “When I received the good news, I was just about to leave for a mini print exhibition in Spain and couldn’t hold back the [happy] tears.”
Given its scale, the City of Kingston was heavily involved in the project. According to Gowland, the project was funded by Kingston’s Parking Operations, Licensing, and Enforcement Department as part of the city’s Public Art Program. It was administered by the Facilities Management and Construction Services Department and the Arts and Culture Services Department.
Kingston in Motion was Gowland’s first experience working on a public installation of its scale. She credited Taylor Norris, Kingston’s Public Art Coordinator, and Megan Sirett, Kingston’s Manager of Events and Programs, for this “incredible learning opportunity.” Specifically, Gowland faced the challenge of “translating [her] vision to a very ambitious scale, with each of the panels measuring 75 by 52.5 inches,” she wrote. “I also loved the challenge of making each panel flow seamlessly into the next.”
The enormous panels are filled with meaning for Gowland. “My mothers are actually featured in panel 8, just at the end of the rainbow,” she wrote. “The figure in panel 7, accompanied by her mini poodle, was inspired by my grandmother and her dog, Jax,” Gowland wrote. Her family is one of her “greatest sources of inspiration.”
Including her family in the work made its installation special. Gowland witnessed the entire installation on Sept. 17. “Watching everything come together was so fulfilling. As I sat and watched the mural unfold, people passing by began to realize I was the artist, and many took a moment out of their day to stop and share kind words,” Gowland wrote.
“That evening, my family made the trip to see the finished piece, which was another highlight of the day,” Gowland wrote.
The process of bringing Kingston in Motion to life was ultimately rewarding for her. “It reaffirmed how I feel about the city itself, and the kindness of Kingstonians in general,” Gowland wrote.
Tags
Art, City of Kingston, downtown Kingston, Mural, Visual art
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