BANFF – Six historic photographs made into a painting then transformed into a massive art installation currently adorns the back wall of Banff’s Mount Royal Hotel.
The mural, by local artist Fonda Sparks on the once empty wall of the popular hotel downtown Banff, is a new installation and was a long time in the making.
In December 2018, the Town of Banff’s community art committee and Mount Royal Hotel put a call-out for artists to submit ideas for how they would transform the blank brick wall into something spectacular.
Open to artists of any tier, the commission called for a two-dimensional piece of artwork, which would then be installed on the north-facing wall of the Mount Royal Hotel. The catch? The piece had to have some sort of tie to Banff and the Bow Valley.
“My great grandfather worked on the railway in the 1800s, he was one of sort of the first settlers in Banff, so the family history is he had a settler homestead in Banff National Park before it was Banff National Park,” said Sparks.
“I inherited just boxes of photos. Because I’m an only child and my parents passed away, my grandparents passed away, so I inherited these sort of buttloads of photos You know I had this really cool photo album in there, it’s covered in leather, it’s beautiful and there’s these really old family pictures in there.
“Unfortunately I don’t really know who they are anymore, which is what happens when you know you sort of lose the connection a little bit … but there’s these beautiful photos.”
Sparks’ piece combines six of the photo’s she found taken in or around Banff that she felt encapsulated what it means to live in this area.
“It’s a page out of these photo albums that I painted – to scale of this painting – it’s a lot of people, it’s in the 1920s – ‘and then the picnic’ [the photos] say in 1928. People are sort of relaxing having picnics, having a day off. I think what I really loved about it is it sort of spoke to what people did in Banff then and what people still do,” she said.
“It was sort of this great sort of history – but at the same time it hasn’t really changed – people still come, they sit, they look at the mountains, they have picnics, they come to relax and have a day off work. I thought it was sort of this great reason, or ode to why people come to the mountains.”
The painting was done on a canvas on a 40” by 32” and then was blown up to a 40-foot by 32-foot vinyl panels that are weather resistant. It was then placed on the Mount Royal Hotels north-facing wall. Sparks said it’s pretty incredible to see her painting blown up that big.
“They blew it up and made it this big. I’ve always said I want to make a really big painting and this is beyond my ideas of a really big painting,” she said.
“I have this photo of me beside it and I’m just this tiny micro little person. It’s amazing, just amazing to see it this big. It was a little daunting as I was painting – there’s people in it and I was oh my gosh like what if I get their nose wrong, it’s going to be two feet big. But it’s all relative when you see it from far away, so it’s great, it’s really exciting – it was a very detailed piece, which I was glad.”
As for the use of the photos, Sparks is glad they have found a purpose again.
“I like that there was a use for these photo’s again because you know I think we all have these photos, now they’ll all be in our phones, but quickly you don’t know who they are and you don’t know what to do with them but this way, they sort of live on, right?”
Sparks’ piece was chosen by a five person-judging panel from both the Town of Banff community art committee as well as a representative from Mount Royal Hotel. Alongside the joy of having a piece of art displayed so prominently, Sparks also received a fee commensurate with standard Canadian Artists’ Representation/Le Font des Artistes Canadiens (CARFAC) guidelines.
The piece will be on display for the next five years. Mount Royal Hotel is located at the corner of Banff Avenue and Caribou Street. To find out more about Sparks or the painting, visit www.banffjaspercollection.com.
–With files from Tanya Foubert
