In a bold, propaganda-inspired graphic style with splashy blue and yellow colors, Eric J. García’s new mural, “The Strongest Soft Power in the World,” at the University of Nevada, Reno, champions the transformative power of the arts while paying homage to our region’s diverse culture and unique history.
García, a New Mexico-based artist and political cartoonist, was UNR’s spring 2024 artist in residence. His three-story, 1,600-square-foot mural, located in the courtyard of the Church Fine Arts building, physically and symbolically unites the visual arts, theater, dance and music—all of which are taught in the building.
This new mural has stirred up excitement and momentum to make the courtyard it inhabits into more of a gathering space for students and faculty than it previously had been.
“There’s been a lot of conversation about: How we move forward with the space and make it accessible for people?” said Austin Pratt, the curator and manager of University Galleries. “Do we put more artworks out here, like a sculpture yard? Is it more of a study area with tables and chairs? Everybody’s kind of coming out of the woodwork with all these ideas now that we’ve started doing something with the space.” He said the facilities team has already offered to give the floor a fresh coat of paint to help spruce it up.
García painted the mural with help from students in the “Wall Works” summer mini-session course, led by Pratt, where students learned about the history of murals, gained practical experience working on this one, and were trained in the use of daunting equipment like scissor lifts and scaffolding.
It was important for García to receive input from the community, especially students, when creating his design.
“I’m going to go away, but the mural stays,” García said. “The project has to be relevant to the community, because they’re going to be living with it.”
In March, García visited Reno and surrounding areas like Pyramid Lake. He met with students and gave a public lecture, where he passed out notecards, asking those in attendance to write down what they would want to see represented in the mural.
When UNR’s Black Rock Press showed García its Barbara Anne Kelly Historic Wood Type and Printer’s Cuts Collection, García had the idea of incorporating some of the one-of-a-kind wood type fonts into the mural’s design. All of the text in the mural comes from the press’ wood type collection. This further blossomed into a collaboration between the Black Rock Press, García and his students on a hand-printed, limited-edition broadside poster of the mural’s design, using the actual wood type.
“The composition of the mural has a brown border that goes around it that kind of looks like torn paper, so the image itself is referencing iconic graphic works on paper, like propaganda posters or broadside prints,” Pratt said. “It became this really meta thing.”
Out of the community feedback and research García gathered, he created a cohesive design that intertwines each of the important themes he identified: the arts, the history of Reno, environmental issues like scarcity of water, and representation of the Indigenous people who have always lived on this land. García used the Paiute and Spanish words for “water” on the right side of the mural to acknowledge the marginalized populations whose history is often erased.
There’s also some classic Reno iconography in García’s design, including the neon signs from Harold’s Club and the Thunderbird Motel, and, of course, the Reno Arch—the mural’s title, “The Strongest Soft Power in the World,” is a play on the city’s famous slogan, “The biggest little city in the world.”
The central, and most striking, visual element of the mural is a blue fist gripping a pencil. If you look closely, you can trace the origin of the fist to a stream of water starting in the background.
“Water is soft; it’s malleable, flexible, but it can also be very powerful,” García said. “Give it time, and it can carve the Grand Canyon, right? (In the mural), the water starts at Pyramid Lake and goes out into the Truckee River, then it falls into this pit that’s been mined out, and reacts, creating this giant force that bursts up into the air and eventually turns into the fist holding a pencil. The splashes of water represent how the arts can rise up and be very powerful.”
This article was produced by Double Scoop, Nevada’s source for visual arts news. Learn more at DoubleScoop.art.