Public Art from Ben Mollner x Dark White Gallery

Commissioned by the city of Denver in 2020, Ben Mollner’s 150-foot mural located on the Cherry Creek Trail in Denver just south of the Cherry Creek Shopping Center was halted as nearly all public art calls in Denver were put on hold during the Covid outbreak of 2020. The city allowed for a new commission the following year and the design for the mural officially began in the fall of 2021. 

The shape of the mural – a very long 150-foot wide span with a relatively short height, varying from 7-8 feet tall – presented challenges from a design and flow perspective. The result is a design that passes from a series of interconnected smaller pieces with elements bleeding into each other as the viewer moves along the entire work. 

The mural, titled “Ending of Reason, Beginning of Rhyme” is meant to symbolize a dream-like version of an entire life lived. The long and continuous design allows the viewer to be told a story as they move along the work. The entire mural can be viewed as one large cohesive piece, but only at a distance, and the details of the image fade away from this distance to leave only a brightly colored beacon along the river’s edge. Similar to an entire lifetime, it is difficult to find one singular purpose, message, or idea when viewed as a whole, but becomes infinitely more meaningful as the viewer gets right up to the mural and experiences singular moments along the wide span. There is no chronological order, and much like our human experiences, each image and moment is influenced by the next, but not defined by it. 

The imagery contains nods to the balance of life and death, with brightly colored floral patterns which represent new growth as well as celebration of death and a life completed. Flora and fauna, man and woman, history and future, skeletons and anatomical sections encompass all that defines human existence. A bright color palate is designed to bring an overall sense of celebration over mourning, inspiration over sorrow. A repeating series of eyes throughout the image represents our human awareness and view of the future and past as we progress through this living tale. 

The imagery also contains multiple references to Denver with city skylines, local plants found along the creek, and buildings and patterns inspired by those found within the city. 

When the mural was first proposed in 2020, the concept for the artwork was conceptualized but did not exist in any physical or rendered manner. Once the mural’s designation became official in 2021, the design of the imagery began and took approximately 3 months to complete a small-scale rendering. At the completion of final imagery, the dawn of 2022 had begun and the weather did not allow for installation until the warmer summer months came. The physical installation took approximately 7 weeks to complete and is comprised of hand painting and latex ink print work on large sections of vinyl over the concrete substrate. 

Ben Mollner is a Colorado native and Denver resident, running an art gallery in Denver’s Santa Fe Art District called Dark White Gallery, and also a practicing dentist in Denver with two practice locations in Cap Hill and DTC. A passion for arts and science heavily influences the style, approach, and imagery in much of the artwork.