May 3rd, 2019: The beautiful murals that make Whistler Train Wreck the magical place it is today, began appearing in 2011. Artists ranging from aspiring graffiti artists that mostly remain unnamed, to tremendously gifted professional mural artists like Kris Kupskay. Kris Kupskay(aka: Kups) is a prolific mural artist with stunning works that can be seen all over Whistler and the lower mainland. One of his hauntingly beautiful murals can be found inside the first boxcar you come to after crossing the bridge into Whistler Train Wreck.
Created back in 2011 during the Train Wreck Paint Jam organized by another local legend in Whistler, Chili Thom. Several murals created at the Paint Jam in 2011 were gorgeous. Brilliantly coloured and surreal in such an unusual, tranquil and hidden forest with seven mangled train boxcars scattered. Like some sort of haunting art gallery, the boxcars are actually spaced somewhat randomly and far apart. Two are still joined, two more scattered a few dozen metres away and three more several hundred metres away. The spacing of the boxcars means you have to hike a bit and search the forest for the next discovery. When you find another boxcar, you then have a few possible canvasses to explore. The murals usually adorn the length, or part of the outside of a car. If laying on its side, the roof becomes the canvas. In the case of the Hidden Agenda boxcar, which lays on its side, the inside wall(ceiling actually) is the canvas for the stunning Hidden Agenda mural(pictured here).
Though most of the murals at Whistler Train Wreck are big, bright and hard to miss, others are not so easy to spot.. yet stunningly beautiful. On the outside of the Hidden Agenda car, on the end facing away from the river you will find a strange, usually brightly coloured metal wheel attached to the car. As the car is laying on its side, the wheel would have been at the top of a ladder and must have been used to open and close something. The ladder is also still there, mangled, horizontal and usually brightly coloured similar to the wheel. Around the same time Kups was painting the Hidden Agenda mural, another marvellous work of art was created in this unlikely spot. Easy to miss, the Hidden mural covered more than half of the outside end of the boxcar.
What makes the Hidden mural so impressive is not just the intricate texture and seemingly chaotic colouring, but the fact that the corrugated metal of the 'canvas' was incorporated into it. The arm of the figure in the centre runs along the deep bend in the metal and continues into the shadow that defines the legs. We haven't figured out the artist behind this mesmerizing mural, but we're working on it. Sadly this extraordinary work of art didn't last long before being covered by a pointless and random collage of junk graffiti. Unfortunately, pictured below is how it appears more recently.
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