Clown Soldier, Wing, Shin Shin, NohJColey, N’DA at “Living Walls : Albany”

A Special Report

Words by KC Orcutt

Photos by Bob Anderson

With Marketplace Gallery transformed into what is best classified as a sleep away art camp — complete with scattered sleeping arrangements, wheat pastes hung up on the gallery walls ready to greet the outside world, in progress portraits of some of the participating artists by White Cocoa and a healthy buzz of street art-fueled conversations late into the night — the past couple of days and nights have blurred together leading up to the debut of the Living Walls project in Albany, officially launching this weekend.

Clown Soldier (photo © Bob Anderson)

Away from the hustle and creation taking place both in the street, at the gallery and St. Joseph’s church, a conductor of sorts sits under a bridge in Rensselaer at the Art Park, overlooking Albany. The piece, as created by Clown Soldier, puts a figure in command of the happenings of the city from a detached control station. One can’t help but picture the happenings in Albany in relation to the Living Walls as beneath the futuristic bubble Clown Soldier created. The tag line that organically manifested surrounding the Living Walls in Albany — “This Is Happening In Your City” — is setting in.

Clown Soldier (photo © Bob Anderson)

Kitty corner to the Clown Soldier piece is another Living Wall where Shin Shin and Wing collaborated under the massive support of the bridge in Rensselaer. The pair got to work using a bright palate environmentally fitting for the open industrial space, creating a natural and whimsical balance on the surface of the bridge’s support.

Wing and Shin Shin Collaboration (photo © Bob Anderson)

Wing and Shin Shin collaboration (photo © Bob Anderson)

NohJColey, Depoe and N’DA also got down in Rensselaer, working over the course of several days on large-scale pieces, bordering existing (and aging) public murals, while also bouncing in between St. Joe’s church, where Living Walls installations are coming into form from a multitude of artists, local and beyond.