Artist Daniel Salazar photographed the interior of the Colorado State Capitol dome and people from the Westwood neighborhood to create a photomural using the latest in digital photography and solar lighting technology.  The five foot square photomural is printed on translucent vinyl and mounted on the ceiling in the Westwood Community Center’s lobby below a Solatube skylight.  Westwood Renaissance is a tribute to the early Italian Renaissance painter Andrea Mantegna, appropriating a portion of his ceiling frescoes from the Camera delgi Sposi in Pedua, Italy.

 

“There is a timelessness to neighborhoods like Westwood that connect us with other times and places,” said artist Daniel Salazar. “It is this timelessness of community I wish to honor with this work.”

Born in Denver in 1952, Daniel Salazar grew up in the Westwood neighborhood.  He received his Bachelor of Arts degree in Communications from the University of Colorado at Boulder, with additional studies at Pomona College and Universidad Veracruzana, Mexico.  Salazar was a photographer with Disney World from 1976 to 1980, a principal in Chispa Productions, one of the first independent Chicano film production companies, from 1979 to1982 and a producer/director for the PBS affiliate KBDI-TV from 1983 to 1988, where he produced some of the station’s first national award-winning documentaries.  Associate Director for the Colorado Council on the Arts from 1987 to 2000, Salazar specialized in literature, visual, performing, folk and media arts, as well as support for individual artists.  He was a Media Arts/Literacy Specialist for Denver Public Schools from 2000 to 2003 and is presently Director of the XicanIndie FilmFest for El Centro Su Teatro and CEO of impossible artz, providing media arts production, publishing, distribution, promotion and marketing.  His media art, including film, video and photography, have been distributed throughout the U.S., Mexico, Latin America and Europe since 1979.  Salazar regularly exhibits photography and other published materials in galleries, art centers and museums across the U.S.  He is married to artist and educator Maria (Maruca) G. Salazar and has two children; son Gabriel N. Salazar and daughter Maruca R. Salazar.