The Artists Behind the 2019 Art Bikes
On June 30 2019, Healthy Ride, in partnership with PPG Paints and the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership, launched five unique bikes into the existing fleet of 550 bicycles. These five bikes are special, each one designed by a local artist or group of artists who hand-crafted and designed their bicycle.
The Art Bike Project celebrates Pittsburgh by bringing mobile public art to its streets and engaging the local art community in an effort to further beautify Pittsburgh neighborhoods. PPG Paints donated not only the 1Shot! paint to professionally create each design, but also their training facility and staff to help make each work of art a reality. The art bikes fleet will launch during OpenStreets, providing the first look at each bicycle before they were released into the wild.
Jes LaVecchia (Jeshaka)
I am a Pittsburgh artist, born & raised south of the city that’s been living in town off and on for the better part of a decade, currently residing in Crafton. I work for Allegheny Clinic at AGH, a direct partner of Highmark, so that encourages me to participate even more. I show in galleries & coffee shops locally and sell my work at Handmade Arcade, the Mattress Factory gift shop and online.
Jameelah Platt
My objective is to create a translation of the spaces that we as community can mutually acknowledge, remember and embrace. When we are approached with something recognizable, we are often faced with emotions that take us as viewers to a memorable space. The rendition of these themes are presented to create comfort through depictions of communal spaces and awaken ideas of nostalgia, comfort and community.
Zachary Rutter
I am a professional artist and recent college graduate, living and working in the city of Pittsburgh. My art is my way of spreading positivity to all of those I come in contact with throughout my creative journey. That is why I started my movement called the Spread Love Army, which is set on putting an end to the war on hate by simply promoting a message of Love. Love is very powerful and often overlooked, but It’s something that radiates strongly across our beautiful city. Pittsburgh is full of proud citizens that express love undeniably for our culture, which is the root of what art is about. Art is a representation of the culture it’s created around.
Jason Sauer
A large part of what I do focuses on public art and making art accessible to all through custom vehicles such as art cars and demolition derby trucks. The idea of the Unicorn Bike Project really connected things I love together. Public art, custom modes of transportation, and PPG Paint!
Heather Mallak (Public Studio), Shaili Chibba, Christopher Pandolfi & Melanie Kapogines (Department of Unusual Certainties)
We are a team of designers who are driven by our natural curiosity to design experiences, spaces and visualizations that engage communities and inspire conversation. We’ve always blurred the lines between the conventional practices of urbanism, design, art and problem solving.
We worked together to create a design that expresses how the act of riding a bicycle is inextricably linked with human emotion through reactions to the sights, sounds and smells around us, eliciting a spectrum of emotion from intense fear to boundless joy. Our work often incorporates both the physical and digital landscapes, and our bike is meant to express the range and fluctuation of feelings visually through a colorful representation of the emotional gradient combined with an augmented reality marker to bring the design to life with a simple and fun digital experience.