NEW MURAL AT GATEWAY COMMUNITY COLLEGE CELEBRATES HISTORY

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ARTIST STATEMENT

Bacpac / Jeremie Franco:

When the College asked for the theme, "Gateway to Hope", I literally drew from the impressive 150+ certificate programs offered at GateWay Community College, and also was sure to acknowledge the input from some of the students and the President of the College, too, addressing the diversity of the population served by Gateway.

This mural is executed in the style of Thomas Hart Benton, a WPA /Depression era artist tasked by the government to show how America, post WW I, would be able to rise dynamically as a world force in agriculture, industry, and automotive manufacturing. I felt that I had been given the same mission, so I called on Benton's imagery: His weird perspectives and hard-working salt-of-the-earth Americans, in charismatic scenes doing amazing things toward progress.