College Park, Maryland – The College Park City-University Partnership announces the selected artists to paint a mural on a prominent upper-story façade along Baltimore Avenue near the intersection with Knox Road: Cory Stowers and Jason Philp.
PRESS RELEASE
October 1, 2019
CONTACT Eric Olson
240-416-3184
eolson@collegeparkpartnership.org
College Park, Maryland – The College Park City-University Partnership announces the selected artists to paint a mural on a prominent upper-story façade along Baltimore Avenue near the intersection with Knox Road: Cory Stowers and Jason Philp.
Cory Stowers is an award winning multi-disciplined creative artist from Hyattsville, Maryland. His resume includes credited projects in the fields of visual art, recorded music, film, scholarly writings and education relating to public art. He began his art career as a graffiti writer in 1994. He cofounded the Double Down Kings, a graffiti crew which has hosted free instructional classes on graffiti art for the past twenty-years and have contributed to more than 50 public mural commissions.
In 2015, Stowers founded ART BLOC DC, and was awarded the Public Arts Building Communities Grant from the Washington DC Commission on Arts and Humanities (DCCAH). They used the funds to create the first interactive public mural in the United States by utilizing a free use Augmented Reality application to make the mural “live” with video and audio content accessible via mobile device. Stowers was honored in 2016 as the recipient of the DCCAH Artist Fellowship Award in the Literary Arts, for his academic writings on graffiti art and street culture. Stowers was honored once again as the recipient of the DCCAH Artists Fellowship Award in the Visual Arts, and the Mayors Award for Artistic Excellence in 2018.
Jason Philp is a multi-media artist, also from Hyattsville, Maryland. He first discovered his passion for art at Northwestern High School where he began to develop his skills as an illustrator. Philp joined the Double Down Kings in 2002 and began working on projects with fellow members helping to create dozens of murals in Washington, DC.
The mural features native Maryland species including the Checkerspot Butterfly, Black-eyed Susan and Terrapin. For more than 100-years, College Park has been planting the seeds of conservation. This mural is an ode to the contributions made by the city and university, toward protecting our environment. The mural honors the role of pollination in our ecosystem, with the aim of drawing attention to the plight of the Baltimore Checkerspot Butterfly. Work will begin on this mural this fall.
The Partnership’s work is grounded in smart growth initiatives that aim for a vibrant, walkable, environmentally-friendly community. We are making College Park a top 20 university community. One of the ways we seek to create a stronger, livelier downtown and sense of place is through art that reflects the College Park and University communities.
This project, completed with support from the Prince George’s County Redevelopment Authority and the City of College Park, will transform the most visible and prominent façade in downtown College Park, signal to residents, visitors, and other business owners that the Baltimore Avenue corridor in College Park is an interesting destination for arts, culture, businesses, and more.
Residents can stay up to date on the mural’s progress at
https://collegeparkpartnership.org/tag/downtowncpmural/
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The College Park City-University Partnership is the nonprofit local development corporation sponsored by the City of College Park and the University of Maryland. The Partnership’s mission is to promote and support the economic welfare of College Park and the University of Maryland through activities including commercial revitalization, community development, and quality housing opportunities consistent with the interests of the City of College Park and the University of Maryland.