Miles Halpern, artist and teacher

Revolution

As the artist, I sought to represent balance between different areas of diversity, considering diverse backgrounds and perspectives, considering socioeconomic, ability, race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, cultural, political, and religious association. The circular format influenced a design where all have equal compositional placement showing as little hierarchical preference as possible. The painting has hanging hardware designed to allow the painting to be hung in five different orientations, allowing different figures to be highlighted depending on the month of heritage/cultural/identity awareness allowing for dynamic presentation possibilities. 5 women, and 5 men are represented, each are role model representatives from diverse communities, such as Native American (Jim Thorpe), Asian (I. M. Pei, Kalpana Chawla, Malala Yousafzai), African American (Marsha P. Johnson, Harriet Tubman, James Baldwin), Latinx (Frida Kahlo, Lin-Manuel Miranda), LGBTQIA (Marsha P. Johnson, James Baldwin, Frida Kahlo), persons with disabilities (Frida Kahlo and Stephen Hawking). These representatives are famous for their activism, contributions to culture, fighting intolerance, contributions to science, fighting poverty, education, women’s and human rights. Some of these representatives are American, and many are not. This is intentional, because it is important for a mural that represents Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion to not just highlight American values, ideas, and people, but to educate, bring awareness, and honor the greatness that humans can aspire to, from wherever they come from. To do otherwise would risk a nationalistic attitude of American superiority, “Us versus the World”, and this would be the opposite of my intention for this design.

To see a full description with bios of each person included in the mural, view this PDF: Revolution PDF

Revolution

Revolution (facing up: Frida Kahlo and Stephen Hawking)

Revolution (facing up: Harriet Tubman and Lin-Manuel Miranda)

Revolution (facing up: Kalpana Chawla and Jim Thorpe)

Revolution (facing up: Malala Yousafzai and I. M. Pei)

Revolution (facing up: Marsha P. Johnson and James Baldwin)

Faces of Kish

The idea for the “Faces of Kish” show began when I decided to use some leftover scraps of mat board and a cheap box of watercolors to do some portraits of my students while they worked. I invited people to sit for portraits and choose a color that I would paint them with. I wanted to do something to bring people together as a community, represent its individuality and commonality. I also wanted to be inclusive to those who were not typically involved with the arts by making a diverse group of people a part of the art exhibition, and allow each participant to keep their portrait after the show. There is meaning and insight to be found in people’s individual faces, but also great power in seeing them all together as part of the community they all contributed to. During each portrait session of about 15 minutes, it was amazing to sit down with so many people, share stories, our backgrounds, and aspirations.

Faces of Kish

Cerulean, Faces of Kish

Faces of Kish

Violet, Faces of Kish

Faces of Kish

Pride Mural

In 2017, to help celebrate LGBT pride and awareness, I designed a community mural inspired by the shapes and colors from rainbows. Community members from Kishwaukee College were encouraged to help paint in sections of the 8x4’ mural. The finished piece is on permanent display as part of the Kishwaukee College art collection.

Pride Mural

Pride Mural, action shot

Pride Mural, process

LGBT Community Mural

In 2018, I was asked to create a new mural to celebrate LGBT pride. It was important to create a work that allowed members of the community to participate in its creation. I designed a geometric grid of shapes that spelled out LGBT, then invited members from the Kishwaukee College community to paint in the shapes however they pleased using a rainbow color palette. The finished piece is on permanent display as part of the Kishwaukee College art collection.

LGBT Community Mural installed

LGBT Community Mural