The Colorful Jungle

Among many Greater Cincinnati residents, Northern Kentucky University (NKU) earned the nickname “The Concrete Jungle” because of its behemoth, gray buildings and sterile amenities. However, as NKU’s enrollment has grown steadily in recent years, institution officials have upgraded the school’s on-campus arena, theater and other amenities.

Additionally, NKU has built a new Student Union building, which features several eateries, stores and other amenities that cater to students. To reflect the growing university’s increasingly diverse population, the university hired Michael Burns, owner of MuralPop, to create a 47 x 8-ft., inkjet-printed mural that’s installed in the building’s second-floor hallway. Burns describes his composition as “graffiti with a fine-art aesthetic. The wall features multilingual text that reflects NKU’s diverse population.”

He created his work originally as a 10 x 30-ft. handpainted oil-on-canvas mural. He digitized his work, and output the project on a solvent-ink printer with Oracal’s 631 calendered, wall-graphic film and 3676 perforated-window film.

Burns said he’s in discussions with NKU for future, grand-format projects.