Murals > Iowa City Mural, 2019

Originally a wall painted black and a space cluttered with waste bins, I thought about how injecting an intensity of color, plants, and patterns could shift the space into an uplifting, positive area; one that pulls us from our mundane routine and glimpse into a colorful other-world.

Stylistically, graphic geometric patterns found within the city spill into this surreal landscape. Here, I maximize the wall in layers of diverse patterns and color in hopes to suggest how these elements represent how diversity is the building block to both healthy natural spaces and a town’s culture.

Inspired by the riverways around Iowa, I landed on a colorful leisure water scene as the mural’s focus. I’m interested in the above and below, how landscape shifts and becomes more fluid beneath the water’s surface, and how the underwater landscape is so different from the one we experience day-to-day. Since the wall is composed of two distinct buildings but unified by physical connection, I aimed to mirror this feature in the mural-- a unified landscape but our perspective of the waterway shifts-- on the left our view sinks below the surface, but to the right, we merely glimpse above the surface.

Atop a cloud, a costumed female figure emits a radiant pink energy that flows throughout the mural. This energy is patterned with flowers and speaks not only about the power of feminine energy but also the trope of mother nature and the power that natural (and man-made) surroundings have on us.