Kaleidoscope (How'd Ya Get to be Happiness?) (2022)

Kim West, with SPM Design

DESCRIPTION:  122,000+ square foot mural on multiple exterior surfaces, including a large free-standing wall and an adjacent facility structure
  • 9 façades
  • 122,000+ square feet
  • approx. dimensions:  10-feet - 98-feet by 50-feet - 437-feet


This remarkable mural installation is the result of SPM Design's 2020 selection of artist Kim West's butterfly "Kaleidoscope" concept, with the subtitle "How'd Ya Get to be Happiness?," for the Huntington Beach Energy Project (HBEP) (formerly the AES natural gas generation facility).  The mural project is large-scale and comprehensive, and at more than 122,000 square feet it is considered the largest mega-mural in California.  
West's centerpiece mural is on both a free-standing wall and the adjacent facility structure, and other facility components such as towers and storage tanks have been painted complementary turquoise colors.  The entire "Kaleidoscope" project  faces wetlands and the beach to the south and southwest, and can be seen reflected on the adjacent wetlands surface (see the artist's images at KimWest.com and the project video at SPM Design
Artist's statement:  "A massive group of butterflies is called a kaleidoscope, which is exactly what they look like....these shifting, beautiful colors that are playing with one another."   - Kim West
LOCATION:  exterior of Huntington Beach Energy Project (HBEP) facility, 21730 Newland Street, Huntington Beach, California, USA 
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