A Moment in Time: Here by Rick Dula
2009
Acrylic paint and mixed media on wall
Patrons: The Baz Family
Denver-based artist Rick Dula was inspired by the Hamilton Building’s angular design throughout the building’s construction. He made several paintings of the structure in progress.
The Hamilton Building was such a fascinating thing to see in its skeletal form, when it was all steel girders. I was fortunate enough to get a couple of hardhat tours during that time, and I took two photographs from a point about 30 feet behind where you’re standing. But essentially, five years ago, this is what you would have seen if you were standing here
A Moment in Time: Here, Dula’s photorealistic mural of the Hamilton Building’s skeletal structure, is located on level two. The painting takes viewers back in time to see the building as it looked during construction. It was executed with help from Lotte Dula, Don Farnsworth, Rob Rix, and James Thomson.
© Rick Dula. Photos by Jeff Wells.
Meet the Artist
Rick Dula was born in 1957 and received his BA from California State University at Hayward in 1984. Upon graduation, he went to work at Magnolia Editions in Oakland, California, where he became the master printer in 1986 and continued to work until he moved to Denver in 2001. He has been awarded residencies at a number of institutions including the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts in Omaha. As a painter Dula has been dubbed an heir to Charles Sheeler, the Precisionist painter/photographer of the early twentieth century.
Dula has exhibited his work throughout the United States and is in the permanent collections of the U.S. Department of State in Washington, D.C., the Oakland Museum in Oakland, California, the Springfield Art Museum in Springfield, Missouri, and the Rutgers Archives at the Zimmerli Museum, in New Brunswick, New Jersey, among others. He is represented by the William Havu Gallery in Denver and the George Billis Gallery in New York.
Photo of the artist by Marc Piscotty.
Recent Work
DAM Building Progress, 2005. Image copyright the artist. Courtesy the William Havu Gallery, Denver.
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