- PHOTO BY REBECCA RAFFERTY
- Artist Sarah Rutherford and youth apprentice Tehya Bollar tape off geometric lines while artist Justin Suarez applies paint to "This is Triumphant Music," the Wall\Therapy mural featuring Rochester musicians at Martin Luther King Jr. Park.
(Sarah Rutherford, Justin Suarez, Brittany Williams, Shawn Dunwoody)
This year’s winner is not a single work on a wall, but the cache of murals located at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Park. The park hosts concerts and a cascading water feature in the summer and Roc Holiday Village in the winter, but year-round it’s an artistic backdrop with the vibrant Roc Paint Division murals (a project led by Sarah Rutherford, Justin Suarez, and Brittany Williams) of homegrown musicians Moses Rockwell, Danielle Ponder, and Mikaela Davis. The walls, steps, and ground were formerly the site of Shawn Dunwoody’s BLM collaboration with the community, “The Empire Strikes Black,” which was painted over in 2021. The park has more potential as a canvas, and is a space to watch.
Finalists: “I Am Speaking” John Lewis Mural (Ephraim Gebre, Darius Dennis, Jared Diaz, and Dan Harrington) | “Her Voice Carries” series (Sarah Rutherford) | “Some Things Are Better Left Unseen” (Conor Harrington)