The Five Elements project brings a pop of color to the city of Peekskill. The first mural is dark green with hints of light green creating a spiral appearance. The next mural is red splattered covering the middle with hints of white on the outer corners and small fragments of blue along the middle and bottom. The third mural has yellow upward strokes with hints of green and blue fragments along it and is white at the bottom. The fourth mural has a black and grey center with fragments of yellow, green and blue along it, and is white on the outer corners creating a crystal like appearance.
Peekskill artists Christine Knowlton and Candace Winters galvanized the public to create The Five Elements, a series of multicolored murals printed from paper originals. Through paper-painting and shape-cutting workshops held at schools, the library, a coffeehouse, music festivals, and art studios, more than 1,500 community members contributed pieces that were incorporated into the final mural designs.
Enlighten Peekskill is a citywide public art initiative that transforms the route between Peekskill’s waterfront and downtown into an open-air gallery. Funded through the city’s Downtown Revitalization Initiative, the project brings together murals, illuminated sculptures, and large-scale installations that serve as both public art and wayfinding, inviting visitors to experience Peekskill through its history, architecture, and creative community.
On Thursday, June 25, at 4:30pm the project will debut with a path leading from the Hudson River to the city center, a ribbon cutting and a guided art trail walk. Then it will continue on Friday, June 26 at 5:30pm with a grand opening and art trail tour. There will also be an artists panel hosted on Sunday, June 28 from 12-3pm.
The city was awarded a $10 million Downtown Revitalization Initiative grant in 2019, with $500,000 going to the public arts. The National Endowment for the Arts, ArtsWestchester, New York State Council on the Arts, Impact 100 Westchester, and other local businesses all contributed to helping with the project.
Hudson Valley Museum of Contemporary Art organized the Illuminate Peekskill project, which placed multiple sculptures along the area’s local streets to improve the area’s appearance, light up the once dark poorly lit area, and to make it safer. “People didn’t like to walk around the city, so the concept of the illumination sculptures was to light the pathway through art” says Livia Straus president and co-founder of the Hudson Valley Museum of Contemporary Art, a Peekskill-based contemporary art museum that presents exhibitions by emerging and established artists while serving as a catalyst for public art, education, and community engagement throughout the city.
The Peekskill Art Alliance organized the Making Connections artworks. Curating 11 different murals across the area made by 36 artists highlighting the area’s history and collabing with the town’s architectural structures. Robin Kline, a member of the Peekskill Arts Alliance board who oversaw the murals shared how they wanted to bring people into Peekskill by having the artwork as a lead into it and by making connections. “The underlying philosophy behind our murals was really to try to show something about Peekskill’s history and culture, to show the world through art who we are as a community, it’s a very diverse community” says Kline.
Once known more for its economic struggles than its arts scene, Peekskill has spent the past two decades reinventing itself as a cultural destination, with public art playing an increasingly visible role in that transformation. The beautification and redevelopments of Peekskill bring in diverse new styles of art and represent artists from across the country, and locally. It has also become a hub for artists to connect with others alike. Creating these art projects has begun to help create a better future for Peekskill, which would not have been attainable without the state’s support along with these artists that partook in the projects.
“Peekskill is a very diverse community, and often those sub-populations don’t come together, right. We wanted art that would bridge that, and that would share this,” says Straus.
