Project: Revere Hotel Boston Common
For a feature wall in the hotel’s Rebel’s Guild restaurant, Seattle-based Dawson Design Associates tasked Julie Coyle Art Associates with crafting a piece that referenced founding father John Adams in an irreverent way. Coyle hired artist Rachel Herbert, who was “inspired by library walls with books climbing 9 to 10 feet tall and all the content and meaning in those pages,” Herbert says. “Books have a presence and a weight, both literally and metaphorically.” Painted in sections and glued together, the books were shipped to Boston with some repainting to be done upon arrival. Adds Coyle: “It has a consistently gritty and cool feel throughout, much like Boston itself.”
Project: Aurélien, Chicago
DAC Art Consulting collaborated with Studio K Creative on this high-end housing development in Chicago. The local firm’s design scheme exhibits a sense of quiet luxury, so the artwork needed to be bold. “The space is fresh and current,” says DAC’s art consultant Marilyn Breslin. “The oversized canvas pieces in the lobby [are eye-catching].” Artist Marta Spendowska’s works are typically on the smaller side, but “seeing my abstract portraiture in such grandiose scale is an absolute delight,” she says. At this size, she adds, the watercolor is allowed to shine, “showing the intuitive nature of the medium.”
Project: Glasshouse Pittsburgh
Designed by Baltimore and Washington, DC firm RD Jones + Associates, the Glasshouse Pittsburgh apartment complex reflects its location on the banks of the Monongahela River overlooking the city’s Golden Triangle business district. Working alongside Faulkner + Locke, the team commissioned local artists to outfit the various hotel-like amenity spaces with installations that pay tribute to the local history. Among them is a mural reinterpreting a photo of Pittsburgh native and fashion model Evelyn Nesbit by Jeremy M. Raymer that “blends techniques to achieve its idealized beauty,” says Faulkner + Locke principal Brenda Locke. Raymer used spray paint to realize the 12-foot-high, 28-feet-wide mural at such a large scale. The mix of “high levels of abstraction and high levels of realism,” he says, give the piece a classic, singular appeal.
