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Health & Fitness

A Mural of Student Silhouettes Puts Community in Perspective

In keeping with last year’s theme of community, Union School Extended Care and Learning’s (EXCL) students and staff painted a mural designed to juxtapose themes of community and individuality, led by EXCL Group Leader and artist Kevin Riendeau.  The mural is composed of 70 equal sized silhouette portraits of children and staff from the Union School EXCL program, and painted in sets of contrasting colors.

The process of painting the mural and its finished appearance was designed to follow a redundancy that reveals the effect of individual action on society.  Just as members of a society make decisions that reflect upon others, students were given a set of choices that would ultimately determine the mural’s harmony.  The choices included which sets of colors to use, the orientation and placement of their silhouettes.  These choices were left to the children and reflect friendships and color preferences they personally hold.  Some students decided to choose colors and orientations similar to their friends, while some chose the placement of their portraits and colors at random.  These conscious decisions ultimately created a mosaic of color relationships that offer a unique perspective on society as a whole, as well as this particular community of children. 

Mr. Riendeau’s inspiration for the mural was found by searching for artistic styles that would best express the themes of individuality, freedom of choice, and community.  Portraiture, color placement and choice, and the sameness of portrait size best illustrate these themes, but the central part of the mural was attempting to have these themes interact visually.  Color theory, and specifically color relation was decided to be the motif to do this.  Contrasting colors were chosen because just as black and white contrast when held side by side, each child’s personality differs from the students around him or her, but as contrasting colors mix, they “grey,” or neutralize.  This means when the viewer is close to the mural, they see a busy pattern of abrupt color and outlines, but when seen from a distance the colors, blend to create a more fluent movement.       

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The mural hangs outside the EXCL Room at Union School.

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