College Hour mural: Kean depicted by the brush
By Alexander Valdes | Published by December 11, 2019
Inside of Wilkins Theatre lies a mural, a collaborative piece between the students of the Kean University Theatre Conservatory and the Fine Arts Conservatory.
Titled “College Hour,” the mural was set up within Wilkin’s Theatre’s main entrance and is an artistic interpretation of the Seurat painting, “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of la Grande Jatte.”
The artists behind the piece are members of the Fine Arts Conservatory, which includes Brandon Bravo, Tino Cook, Mark Anthony Edquiban, Candace Gely, Marielena Guthrie, Kyle Jorgenson, Mary Clare King, Joanna Lopez, Eric Miele, Jerson Ramos, Timothy Rivera, Cheyonne Thompson, and Leslie Ann Torres.
“(Left to Right) Tino Cook, Leslie Ann Torres, and Jerson Ramos.” Photo by Alexander Valdes
The leading artist behind the project, Brandon Bravo, went into detail as to why the Fine Arts Conservatory decided to take up the challenge of creating the mural.
“The reason why we did this was to unite Vaughn-Eames together because we never really had that before. We wanted to put ourselves out there to show the campus that we actually have talented artists here, so we just wanted to show that we have a voice,” said Bravo. “That’s why when we got the invitation to help out in the theatre, we were like ‘yeah totally we’ll do it,’ just to show that we’re here.”
Jerson Ramos, a senior and Fine Arts major, talked about the creative process behind the piece and the amount of effort that all of the artists put into the piece.
“It kind of started out as a sketch, it was a really rough sketch and we had to get it over a projector, but the projector was small so we had to move it further back and then we just traced over it. Mind you, it was still a rough sketch so we didn’t have a clear edge of every single figure and every building in the background, the rest was improvisational,” said Ramos. “It was just layer upon layer of paint and colors and probably mistakes too.”
The mural offers a slice of life and helps depict what the university is like. Whether it’s students walking about and conversing or sitting under trees or by the clock tower, it incorporates many students of different ethnicities and really portrays the wide range of diversity inside of Kean.
“A collaborative effort between the Theatre and Fine Arts Conservatories.” Photo by Alexander Valdes
Ramos also offered his ideas about what the mural represents to the students of Kean that would look upon it and provided his experience with it.
“It’s titled ‘College Hour,’ so I would think around this time it shows what Kean students do. It’s basically just students walking out of their classes and enjoying their one hour before their 4:30 p.m. class starts and they’re probably just sitting around and talking,” said Ramos. “The process of it was just fun; of course we had a time limit. We had to rush it up a bit but we had fun. We joked around during the whole painting process and I feel like as I saw other people paint their parts to it, I learned a little from each of them.”
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