We Can, Together Mural Stands at the Heart of Campus

Por TCU Magazine

15 de November de 2021

The art installation “We Can, Together” was unveiled in spring 2021 in TCU’s Intellectual Commons ahead of Reconciliation Day. Dan Jian, assistant professor of art, and the 12 students in her Drawing II class created the artwork.

The two-sided mural, which is on the concrete block directly behind the Clark Brothers statue, is a reproduction of a cutout collage series created by students in the course. Before starting work, the class conducted a comparative study on two artists who commonly worked in the cutout medium — Henry Matisse, a white man, and Romare Bearden, a Black man — to investigate how identity and history inform an artist’s work.

—Heather Hughston

Twelve students in Dan Jian’s drawing II class collaborated on “We Can, Together,” an art installation for TCU’s Race and Reconciliation Initiative. The original cut-out work influenced the mural. Courtesy of TCU College of Fine Arts | Photo by Dan Jian

The west side of the mural was painted onto concrete blocks behind the Clark Brothers Statue in the Intellectual Commons between the Mary Couts Burnett Library and Winton-Scott Hall. Photo by Trisha Spence

Students with the east side of the mural: Faith Glass, Lane Rosal, Lauren Fleniken, Quin Frazier, Adelynn Strong, Cam Arthur, Caroline Madden, Romane Mays, John Elias, Katalina Watson and Amaris Gonzales. Courtesy of TCU College of Fine Arts

A third side of the mural, the top, is painted with the words “Reconciliation is more beautiful than victory.” Photo by Trisha Spence

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