Des Moines

The mural presents a panorama of downtown Des Moines from the vantage point of the capitol dome. Agran and collaborator Drew Etienne sought to create an artwork that celebrates a sense of place using color, edge quality, and atmosphere to engage this large wall, but that integrates itself and does not overwhelm downtown. Inspired by their own studio practices, painters they studied with, such as Eve Mansdorf and Bobbie McKibbin, and artists like Antonio Lopez Garcia, the mural exists more as a painting in a public space than a prescriptive or singular message.

This large-scale wall presented a challenge in terms of creating a brush painted mural. For the artists, it is important that their murals have the warmth of human touch, and a goal was to keep the imagery highly legible, but the paint handling open and spontaneous. The palette matches the surroundings. The mural reads crisply from a distance, but dissolves into irregular marks up close – the magic of painting.

The artists intend for the grandeur of the mural’s scale and composition to honor the goals of the commissioning party, and celebrate not just the city of Des Moines, but also the expansive sense of space and distance that can be enjoyed in Iowa. They hope that the mural presents itself as a public cultural asset of the city, and an act of human/artistic expression that helps authentically author a sense of place vs. a branding act of “creative placemaking.”