With the unveiling of a new “Tribute to the West Side” mural corresponding with Hispanic Heritage Month, it was the perfect time to catch up with artist Ramon Trujillo with Mid-Brow Collective.
LIV: Tell me how you got started in art and specifically murals.
Trujillo: I owe a lot as an artist to the formal education I received at MSU Denver. I started there in 2013, and I didn’t know what I wanted to study. I started with mechanical engineering and civil engineering classes, but after taking one art class, it was all I wanted to do. The next year there was a mural class offered, which I joined.
I already had experience with specific tools and equipment from previously working as a foreman on construction job sites, so the professor gave me a leadership position in the class, helping guide some of the other classmates.
I knew how to operate equipment and machinery like scissor lifts. Large-scale art is very different when we are working with a 14-inch roller rather than a painter’s brush. Understanding the different tools helped as well. That was my introduction into large scale art and murals, and that was the world I wanted to be in.
It is so much more expressive when you’re using your whole body for a large-scale piece, not just your wrist. It’s very physical and it allows so much expression.
My goal is to scar this planet in the most positive way, and I can best do that through my art. I bring a lot of passion into large scale projects, whether it’s a mural or an eight-foot by four-foot canvas.
The larger the better!
LIV: Tell me about this mural and its significance.
Trujillo: Over a year ago I started a collective with four other MSU alumni who graduated within a year of when I did in 2019: Adrian Raya, Spencer Eudlay and Zachriah Armijo, plus our professor, Carlos Fresquez, who recently retired. Together, we are the Mid-Brow Collective, and we love to be around like-minded artists with different skill sets while sharing similar goals.
In our collective, we have lots of familiarity in public art spaces, including sculptural work, so we put our skill sets together.
MSU Denver, Latino Cultural Arts Center (LCAC) and the Museo do las Americas put together a call for entry for “Tribute to the West Side,” to be installed on an MSU Music building. Carlos and I saw it and felt like it was essential, since we are from West Denver, from MSU, and it’s culturally significant to the Chicano community.
It was a great fit, so we put all of our efforts into that application. They asked for a proposed design when we were chosen as a finalist, but within the schedule, there were community engagement sessions. So we responded, asking how we could create a design without community input. Whether it’s insights from the 1969 West High School walkouts, Auraria campuses being displaced, the experience of being born and raised on the West Side, or being an immigrant from Mexico, we wanted to include those stories.
So we applied and said it’s so important to bring our backgrounds to the art, and we wanted to reach out to the community to incorporate their narrative.
They loved it, and now it’s going on an MSU Denver music building, so we were granted our debut as a collective to create it.
LIV: What themes inspired you for this piece?
Trujillo: We paid homage to Native American tribes and cultures, who lived there before it was settled by the Spanish, and before competing groups made it a capital.
That influence is very prevalent in the mural: Native Americans on horseback, a baby in a traditional headdress, bison symbolism, and a tribal background with a repetitive pattern.
LIV: What’s next for the collective?
Trujillo: We loved this opportunity, and we want to continue in the same realm. We will keep searching for projects that fit our values best, to celebrate our diversity as a collective.
Our professor Carlos loves the exhibition world, and he has connections with galleries on the East Coast and West Coast, so his network might bring new opportunities to share our work. As for me, I plan to keep applying for public installations, especially in the Denver Metro area, but statewide and nationwide if the project calls to us.