Wheat-Pasting in Denver: Koko Bayer | Westword
Navigation

Art

Wheat-Pasting in Denver: Koko Bayer

1 of 20
Kenzie Bruce
Koko Bayer started adorning Denver's walls with her wheat-pastes in 2015.
Denver has embraced street art. There are city grants that celebrate mural-making, intended to enrich communities and prevent graffiti. Crush Walls, RiNo's annual street-art festival, documents much of that neighborhood's wall art for a year, going so far as to map out each mural or installation by intersection. With the rise in love for murals, where does that leave other, non-mural forms of street art?

Wheat-pasting, the act of using a liquid adhesive to put up artworks or posters, falls in that "other" category. The art form, largely popularized by such artists as Shepard Fairey, is accessible; the paste can be made at home, or wallpaper paste can be used. Wheat-pasting has roots in graffiti and often resides in the same gray area as that medium. Koko Bayer started wheat-pasting in Denver in 2015, using her grandfather's photographs as a primary source of inspiration. Here's a look at her approach, the third in a series on wheat-pasting in Denver.