Denver artist Olive Moya has always dreamed of doing something big. This summer, she did — a 47,000-square-foot mural. 

Moya’s massive work of art, which can be seen at Welton and Tremont streets at the Denver Pavilions facing 15th Street, covers the equivalent of 10 basketball courts’ worth of real estate and reaches 97 feet tall at its highest point. 

It’s Moya’s biggest work of art yet, and one of the largest murals in the state.

Work on the mural began July 13 and officially concluded Monday morning. Moya and her team of six worked 12-hour days, seven days a week for six weeks sketching and painting to bring the colorful geometric mural to life, said curator Anne-Laure Lemaitre. 

“It feels kind of unreal, actually, that it’s finally done,” Moya said while standing below her completed work of art Monday. “The team worked so, so hard and it was hot and just (involved so many) logistics and just getting something up to scale at this scale is incredible. It’s not an easy feat.”

The vinyl display that previously adorned the Pavilions, which depicted the late artist Clyfford Still, was approved for removal by the Denver Downtown Development Authority Board in June. 

The original cost of the mural was $300,000 — but that was back when the project was only going to cover the Welton side of the Denver Pavilions building, said Alana Watkins, a representative for the project. The addition of the Tremont section hiked the price, she said.

The updated total was not available by the time this article was published.

The mural is part of a larger capital improvement project meant to spiff up the Pavilions area and is being funded through revenues generated by Denver Pavilions operations, including parking and commercial leases, Watkins said.

Moya said her team was fairly compensated but declined to offer specifics.

Moya began the project by sketching out the design on a much smaller canvas: a piece of paper. After the old vinyl image was removed from the 47,000-square-foot stretch of brick wall, grid dots and preliminary sketching were added to help Moya and her crew translate the vision to the giant scale it exists at now.

All the moving parts involved with translating the vision into such a large scale proved challenging, she said.

“Trying to, you know, get the sketch done while the wall is being caulked, while the paint is being mixed and everybody is just trying to work together to do all those things at the same time (was the most complex part),” she said.

A lot of intention went into curating the design to the space, Moya said. 

“Obviously, you have to think about context a lot: where the thing is going to live,” she said. “I was thinking a lot about what this place means to people, what it meant to people, even as far back as (when), first, the land belonged to Native Americans. What did that look like? And then things changed from there, and changed again and changed again.”

Change and shapes evolving over time are a theme in the Pavilions mural that mirrors her portfolio at large, she said. 

“I did a little research on why the mall was even built, and it seems like all along the way, no matter negative or positive, the changes were inevitable and the evolution is inevitable, so I kind of wanted to go with that idea,” she said.

The Denver Pavilions mural is not Moya’s first in the Denver area.

Other murals by Moya can be seen across Englewood, Broomfield, Cherry Creek, Wheat Ridge, Baker and other parts of Denver, including in the RiNo art district.

The Denver Pavilions mural, which features swooping lines, shapes, abstract hearts and clouds in every color of the rainbow, brings a pop of color to an otherwise visually muted area of downtown, Moya said.

“Everything is sort of gray and tan and beige in this area,” she said. “It wasn’t a place I necessarily thought about spending a lot of time, partially, probably, because of that. So, it changes that feeling. It definitely feels more exciting to have color and life here.”