Two Cuties
2024 Street Wise Mural Festival
Location: Front of Rock and Resole facing Foothills Pkwy, 2500 47th St Unit 1 Boulder, CO 80301
Photos by Dona and Niko Laurita, Cam Margera, and Dittlo Digital
Happy Valentine’s Day from Two Cuties!
Kaitlin Ziesmer and JVH highlight two animals negatively affected by climate change in their mural for #SWMF2024. The Cassin’s finch lives at higher elevations especially affected by habitat loss due to climate change, while shifting seasons, extreme weather, and the spread of disease caused by climate change threaten bee populations.
The duo blows up the characters to much larger than life size to bring attention to small details that the viewer would otherwise overlook and to create an immersive experience. JVH’s bee pauses while hovering mid-air with his legs, antenna, and stinger curled toward the opposing creature. The artist layers purples, blues, and greens to create texture and visual interest within the bee’s wings and eyes.
Kaitlin’s Cassin’s finch soars across the wall. Maroon feathers rise from his head creating a mohawk of sorts. A pale pink ribbon sits upon the back of his neck tied in a bow. Accents of green feathers play against the purple feathers of the bird. The maroon and purple eyes of the finch peer curiously into the blue-green eyes of the bee.
The artist duo settles on a similar color palette for each mural project, allowing each artist space to shine without compromise and to ultimately create a cohesive work of art. In Two Cuties, the color palette of purples, blues, and greens helps the animals stand out from the wall. These are not the natural colors of either the bee or the Cassin’s finch, evoking whimsy and charm, another key feature of their illustrative and cartoonish style.
Kaitlin and JVH have been painting murals for a few years together and share a studio in Lakewood. Their work has evolved through practice with spray paint over the years, allowing them to achieve more detail and render more clean and polished images with each project. Their experience helped them push through the challenge of painting the corrugated wall at Rock and Resole!
About the Artists:
Kaitlin Ziesmer
Kaitlin Ziesmer is a fine art painter, muralist, and illustrator working out of Denver. She has been featured in numerous exhibits across Denver and throughout the country. She makes brightly colored, illustrative murals, paintings, and sculptures that typically incorporate/combine human and natural elements of various textures, mixed with nostalgia. With a light-hearted sense of humor, she creates art and her color palette with an “it’s for fun” approach.
John Van Horn
John Van Horn is an artist from Denver, CO that focuses on creating cartoonish and lighthearted work with a focus on humor and absurdity.