The meaning behind the artwork that we pass by every day
Sean Finan (any) // Writer
Cassie VP (she/her) // Illustrator
“Murals are billboards for the people.”
— Xochitl Leal
In 2018, Capilano University set out to “beautify” the campus by enlisting four students from the Illustration and Design (IDEA) program to create memorable artwork for the school’s 50th anniversary. With the help of artists from the Vancouver Mural Festival, small teams were designated to colour the campus in a new way: drab concrete walls were transformed into expressions of the creative pulse that runs through the CapU community. These are the students who blessed the walls of our campus with their artwork.
Breeze, Willow Building – Taka Sudo
Taka Sudo’s mural Breeze is known well to the Acting for Stage and Screen students (ASAS) who inhabit the WIllow Building. Born and raised in Tokyo, and now residing in Vancouver, Sudo’s work is a mashup of both of those, “totally different environments.” His work is colourful and magical, and unsurprisingly has been most inspired by, “meeting people with amazing creativity from all over the world.”
The piece features, “[s]cattered abstract elements composed of neon color, neutral color, newsprint and photo collage assembled into organic shapes.” Sudo sought to bring to life to the campus through his art, the, “true energy among real and unreal. Those scattered various elements in abstraction are the representation of our environment, existence.”
According to the CapU website, Sudo noted there was a comfortable breeze blowing through the area he was working, “as well as a steady stream of people walking by, which led him to title his work, Breeze.”
“It is [my] hope that the bright animal characters depicted in [the] mural represent the diverse passion of [CapU] students, and that it motivates them as they pass by,” said Sudo in an interview with the university.
Connecting the Dots, Arbutus Building – Emily Hyunh, Courtney Lamb, Ata Ojani, Brynn Staples
The artists of this piece met serendipitously in the IDEA program, and they wanted to honor their friendship as well as the 50th anniversary of the school.
The artists worked together to create four hidden 50s within the mural. Something that most people overlook but may reward someone that stops and observes for long enough. If you’re walking by this mural, picture yourself and other students as a dot, and think about how you may connect.
Untitled, Cedar Building – Carrielynn Victor and Debra Sparrow
Untitled is a mural that merges the mediums of painting and weaving. Victor, the painter, and Sparrow, the weaver, collaborated to resurrect the ancient tradition of Coast Salish blanket weaving, honouring the ancestral owners of the land on which CapU resides. Featured in the piece is a Coast Salish figure wrapped in a blanket, animating the past and breathing life into the history of the land.
A CapU representative described the design as highlighting, “the role of ancestors in shaping a culture that is growing and looking to the future. In the mural’s lower left corner is a black and white representation of a turning page, increasing the sense of heritage and learning. It’s a subtle reminder of the Coast Salish refrain to always carry with you who you are and remember where you have come from.”
The colours of autumn featured in this mural are noticeable to the passer-by, and represent the appreciation of change while remembering where you came from. Whatever season it might be when you pass by this art piece, the winds of change will be blowing you in a new direction.
Untitled, Birch Building – Andrew Tavukciyan
All of these murals add a much-needed splash of colour to the campus’ concrete complexion, and Tavukciyan’s piece is no different. This mural welcomes people into the Birch Building without words. It is placed at the end of the forest pathway from the Library Building. Around it you may feel a serene bliss due to nature, the artwork itself, or a combination of the two.
Tavukciyan does not want his pieces to be explained, but rather he hopes that people create their own meaning. “Like the creative abandon of jazz musicians on stage, Tavukciyan is playing within the rules, creating something with its own time and space.”
You may be on your way to lunch, hungry and restless, and the sounds of the forest combined with the wonder of the painting might give you a moment of pause.
Spectrum Through the Prism, Birch Building – Cristian Fowlie
The concept for this piece was to portray a diverse array of people through the plane of simple geometric shapes and colours. Fowlie says, “It used simplicity and urgency to link art history—Mondrian, Modernism and Peter Saville—with colour theory, geometry, anatomy, portraiture and graphic design.”
The concept began in Fowlie’s sketchbook in 2013, “The concept of a prism refracting and separating pure light into a spectrum of colours is a metaphor for how the university provides an array of experiences and perspectives that enable participants to create, collaborate and grow in confidence.”
Do you recognize anyone in this piece? Some say they notice loved ones, celebrities or professors.
Here & Now, Cedar Building – Erica Philips
Few murals have the ability to stop people in their tracks, but the Here and Now mural is a piece that stops passengers in their tracks to stare at the impactful words. Perhaps they wonder why such a piece would be in the middle of campus. A reminder to be present is so important when school can feel overwhelming and all consuming.
“The mural emphasizes the unique beauty of the surrounding campus, with the background of the mural an abstract landscape inspired by natural elements found in the Sea-to-Sky corridor,” says Phillips. The continuous emphasis on the natural beauty is something that is found in all of the pieces. The background of the piece represents, “the overlapping layers are representative of nature: dappled light on trees and reflections in water,” according to CapU.
How long have you stopped to look at this mural? Its point may seem redundant but the longer you stare at it the more it makes sense.
Flutter, Nat and Flora Bosa Centre for Film & Animation – Drew Young
This mural decorates the Bosa building with flora, ironically because the building is partially named after Flora Bosa. The piece is humongous. It plays with the organic shapes of flowers and the discordant jagged scribbles covering them. These may evoke feelings of freedom to the artists who inhabit this building.
Murals don’t have to be philosophically fanciful. For Young, murals are simply a way for him to create a “big ol’ painting.” Students walking into this building preparing to create images that shape the world will surely be inspired by these flowers. The metaphor of a flower is classic and beautiful; we are all blooming and wilting at various times and this piece can reflect that part of ourselves.
School of the Golden Era, Cedar Building – Nelson Garcia & Xochitl Leal
This mural may be the most pleasantly eccentric of all the murals on this list. A group of anthropomorphic animals dressed in robes, standing in what seems to be a sort of Mount Olympus–in space. Garcia and Leal are not quick to share the meaning of their work.
According to the Vancouver Mural Festival, “artist duo Nelson Garcia and Xochitl Leal sought to beautify the campus space, utilizing the scale and visibility of the wall to bring to life an iconoclastic rendering of a renaissance painting of famous philosophers Plato and Socrates.”
The duo injected, “surrealism into the scene by transforming the main characters into various animals.”
Some students look at this and dismiss it for being silly, but most students will look at this piece and see a meeting of the minds, and look to their right and see a courtyard of students doing the same thing–sharing ideas and hanging out, just as Plato and Socrates did.
Happy Accidents, Willow Building – Tierney Milne
“I like to use murals as a way to interrupt people’s days with positivity and beauty, to create something that speaks to their inner child and encourages them to feel light-hearted,” said Milne.
The design of this mural is much like the actors that reside in the building it adorns. Bright, colourful and whimsical.
“Tierney Milne’s artwork is colourful and bold — a positive interruption in students’ rainy day commuting and a vivid kaleidoscope amid the muted tones of the natural beauty of the Capilano U campus.”
This piece’s meaning can become something entirely new depending on the angle you view it, the weather, the people you’re with, or any other factor you can imagine that changes your perception of the world around you.
When you take notice, CapU has some great artwork decorating its brutal concrete walls. It’s great to pause for a second to appreciate these works, and think about what kind of beautiful creation you could make that impacts people on a daily basis. Art can be whatever you want it to be, so take your time and think about what a piece means to you, because that is all that matters.
