New public art murals debut in downtown Hartford
Michael Puffer | Hartford Business Journal
Artist Corey Pane (left) and Tiana Correa, a program officer for the Greater Hartford Arts Council, stand by a newly completed mural at 181 Ann Uccello St. in Hartford.
A bright and hopeful mural has gone up on the side of a five-story office building just across from the XL Center in downtown Hartford over the past two weeks.
The new painting on the side of 181 Ann Uccello St. depicts three children, including one riding the shoulders of her father.
“The whole thing was to be about generations of family, just having a little bit of nostalgia for the past, but also representing growth and what is coming into the city,” said West Hartford artist Corey Pane. “I feel people can find themselves in it.”
Pane’s artwork is the 11th of 14 murals commissioned by the Greater Hartford Arts Council using $750,000 in American Rescue Plan Act funds funneled through the city.
The arts council gave artists wide discretion to pursue their own visions, working on themes of inspiration, wonder and community, said Tiana Correa, a program officer for the Greater Hartford Arts Council.
The arts council wanted uplifting murals to inspire hope and joy, Correa said.
Over the course of a little more than a year, six new murals have been spray painted on downtown Hartford commercial and apartment buildings, and five more were created on buildings in city neighborhoods.
One of the first was an 18-story mural depicting a young boy opening a jar full of fireflies on a starlit night. Completed last fall on the side of a hotel-turned-apartment building on Morgan Street, this is the largest mural in New England.
Jim Marzi, a partner in the group that owns 181 Ann Uccello St., said he was apprehensive when first approached about the idea for the art work, but was ultimately convinced by the enthusiasm of Correa and Pane.
He said he is thrilled with the end result.
“I’m all about downtown Hartford,” said Marzi, who is also an executive vice president with LAZ Parking. “I think it brightens up everything.”
Pane, 35, is the same artist who, three years ago, painted a cheerful 100-foot-tall mural of a young woman in a yellow sundress watering flowers on a building at the corner of Church and Pearl streets in downtown Hartford. He used his wife, Kailah King-Pane, as a model.
Pane used hundreds of spray paint cans and a cherry picker lift to paint his latest mural over two weeks. A photo of his wife as a toddler in sunglasses served as one model in the piece. Next to her is an image of his 8-month-old daughter, Zazie. On the far right of the wall is an image, again of Kailah King-Pane as an infant, riding on the shoulders of her father, Roy King.
The image is replete with Hartford imagery. One child is wearing a Hartford Whalers jersey, another a Hartford Yard Goats hat. Roy King, a former Hartford Courant employee, is wearing a Courant-emblazoned hat and a Hartford Wolf Pack t-shirt.
“I feel the city is growing and there is a lot of cool change happening for creative people and artists,” Pane said. “It’s something I always hoped for. I just want it to be about that growth and generations of life.”
Three more murals are expected to be completed by March, Correa said. The Arts Council is planning walking tours and an online guide.
Hartford-based art education nonprofit RiseUP for Arts was contracted early in the mural project to scout locations and identify artists.
“We are just excited to continue to see an explosion of public art,” said Matt Conway, RiseUP’s executive director. “We hope it brings Hartford on par with other cities in Connecticut and the amount of public art that is going up in all the cities.”
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