Esplanade West just got a little bit dreamier.
A verdant new mural adorns a stretch of low wall along the busy roadway, near the ICBC head office in North Vancouver.
With a peach-coloured skyline as the backdrop, larger-than-life flowers almost bloom off the canvas while a gentle spectre cradles a monarch butterfly.
Dubbed Reverie by Vancouver-based artist Rashmi Tyagi, the 130-foot long mural is supposed to illustrate a constant state of flow, and how people are merely a part of the vastness we call nature.
“We’re just travelling through,” she says. “Nature was there before, so it will remain there after us.”
The artwork was sponsored by the City of North Vancouver and created in association with Vancouver Mural Festival. It was designed digitally, before a vinyl printing was installed in early September.
Tyagi’s idea for the piece was to pay homage to the vibrant diversity of North Vancouver’s animal and plant life. Among the vibrant flowers in the piece are non-invasive species including prickly rose and Japanese iris.
Three “guardian” humanoid figures divide Reverie into sections, and exhibit preserving, nurturing and giving qualities as they interact with their biodiverse surroundings.
Contrasting the busy roadway it now decorates, Tyagi wants her mural to serve as a moment of respite: “A sweet reminder that Mother Nature continues to replenish humans despite all they do to it. A gentle nudge to then fiercely protect, preserve and celebrate this continual reverie with her.”
