Diversity Mural
Illustration & Design | Painting Installation
Overview
More than twelve years after graduating high school, I found myself once again walking through the Warren Township High School O’Plaine campus – the building that houses District 121 freshmen and sophomores and notably, my old high school. A place filled with memories of strongly held lessons, strange and familiar faces, hallway mischief and teenage drama – ah, those were the years, right?
Warren Township High School was looking to commission a piece that would represent their diverse student body – a mural that would inspire and educate the kids about the value of diversity. The content would depict the faces of progress and change; people who made a difference and who’s diversity played a part in triggering their life’s work.
Approach
The school selected a list of nine change-makers for me to represent visually in this mural. Part of the process of genuinely depicting the people on my list was learning about their accomplishments to further understand their impact. With research complete, I focused producing portraits of each person on the list, one that best captured their essence.
Sketches evolved into digital illustrations with a thoughtful style that combined functionality and aesthetics. The monochrome portraits feature solid shapes, bold lines and a limited palette. This not only gives the piece a contemporary, ‘pop-art’ style that appeals to a younger generation, but also served useful in the painting phase as blocks of color would be quicker, and easier for an assisting artist to recreate accurately.
By omitting realistic skin colors and using only white, greys and black for the portraits, I sought to communicate the message of unity within diversity.
With the portraits being the focus of the piece, they dictated the design and layout of the composition. Bright bold colors that appeal to young audiences were chosen to complement the school’s blue and gold branding. The staggered quotes add context and further inspire.
While the design process was comprehensive, the painting of the mural proved an artist’s spirits – but not without a lesson or two along the way. With a fast approaching deadline and lots of work to be done, Teo, my assisting artist and I pushed through, splitting painting tasks into phases that suited our strengths and resulted in the mural stakeholders expected.
While the mural has not yet physically greeted the students of a high school conducting remote learning, it has already been received through social media with open arms and an influx of digital thumbs up.