Bicycle riders to and from downtown likely have seen this already – but if you don’t travel along the northernmost section of East Marginal, you haven’t seen this new public artwork. Here’s how the city’s Art Beat site explained it today:
The Seattle Office of Arts & Culture and Seattle Department of Transportation celebrate the city’s newest public artwork located along East Marginal Way. On the Fence, by artist Will Schlough, is installed along the 1-mile corridor section between S Holgate and S Horton Street, adjacent to the newly built protected bike lanes.
Will Schlough is a Seattle-based public artist whose artwork is site-specific and informed by the community. With a broad portfolio of murals and public sculptures throughout the country, Will aims to create work that is surprising, playful, and thought-provoking, providing moments of playful reflection for passersby.
Intended to beautify and enhance the long corridor, On the Fence is an ambitious panel-based mural inspired by the surrounding environment and designed to visually wrap around the fence to which it’s attached. While on its surface the artwork is a collection of scenes that play out as an illustrated storybook, the work is designed to reflect on our relationship with the landscape, our use of natural resources, and ideas of beauty and value in the context of human industry.
Bicyclists and other visitors will experience a series of vignettes or installations along the corridor. The individual installations are thematically and stylistically connected, presenting flora and fauna that thrive in disturbed and urban areas, as well as human-made elements that help develop an engaging and evolving narrative.
The artist also has a work in West Seattle, shown here on WSB before – in the automotive-technology center at South Seattle College (WSB sponsor).
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