AURORA | Although she’s visited Aurora only once, a piece of Blessing Hancock will always sit in a traffic circle in the city’s northern reaches, a few steps removed from the jumbled nexus of Peoria Street and Smith Road.
And at more than 23 feet tall, it’s hard to miss.
Hancock joined a slew of other artists who have public works along the Regional Transportation District’s constantly expanding light rail network last month, after her sculpture, “Biota,” was installed at Aurora’s Peoria Station on the new University of Colorado A Line.
Bearing a name translated from a Greek word referring to the flora and fauna of a particular region, the work features a trio of diamond-like shapes stacked on top of one another. The intent was to create an abstraction of nature, mirroring cellular structures that reveal themselves when seen under a microscope, according to Hancock.
“It had a lot to do with how nature replicates and how, if you see nature up close, you start to see these geometric patterns,” she said. “When it grows, it kind of self-replicates and branches out.”
That combination of ecology and technology is found in much of Hancock’s recent work, which is largely a conglomeration of her passion for nature and a master’s degree in landscape architecture.
“What I produce in the public realm … is this synthesis of art blending with nature, and I’ve always had an interest in technology,” she said. “They’re all coming together in my current body of work.”
“Biota” is composed of an aluminum frame infilled with acrylic polycarbonate panels, according to Hancock. The structure also features LED lights that illuminate at night, which, unlike much of her other public art pieces, are not interactive.
“This one is in a round traffic circle … so (RTD) didn’t really want people going up to it,” Hancock said.
A native of Tucson, Ariz., Hancock hasn’t strayed too far from her hometown, but her work in public art has brought her across the globe. Her installations are scattered across more than 100 sites around the world, though the bulk are in the United States.
Hancock researches her potential installation sites from a distance, poking through Google Maps and checking out local staples from her home studio in Olympia, Wash. For her new work in Aurora, the public artist said that she tried to incorporate the piece’s proximity to the Sand Creek Regional Greenway trail system and the nearby Fitzsimons Life Science District into the final product.
“I thought all of this working in conjunction referred to science, technology and nature within the sculpture,” she said.
Hancock added that her transiency and temporary analysis of public spaces can be a benefit to her public projects, despite receiving occasional pushback from local artists who are less-than-enthused about an out-of-stater nabbing a coveted commission.
“That can sometimes be a contention coming in as an outsider, but I don’t really feel like it’s a drawback,” Hancock said. “I think when you come in with a fresh perspective, and your own specific artist lens, it can be a great value. Sometimes it’s really hard for me to see something new when I continuously live in a place.”
Hancock received a $134,500 commission for “Biota,” a sum that came from a combination of RTD and City of Aurora funds, according to Lindsey Smith, spokeswoman for RTD. The financial pot for public art is largely raised from small taxes on large-scale development projects in both Denver and Aurora.
Smith said that the constant upswell of light rail across the metro area has seen the addition of 54 public art projects across the rail network since RTD first launched its Art-n-Transit program in 1994. In total, the transportation organization has poured about $3.5 million into public art projects at light rail stations across the region.
“The (art projects) serve as a serviceable way-finding tool for our passengers,” Smith said.
Smith said that Hancock’s work speaks to Aurora’s eclectic community, and the city’s ongoing push to be recognized as more than just a suburb.
“It helps to tie in the different cultures around Aurora, and it shows that the city is this kind of living, growing place,” Smith said. “It’s a growing community that wants to stand out. I think this is a piece that really represents that.”