Jessie Unterhalter and Katey Truhn, as Jessie and Katey, are a Baltimore-based artist couple noted for creating large-scale murals that are vibrant and colorful. The Turchin Center at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina, contacted them lately and requested them to paint a stairwell on campus. The two collaborated to create an astonishing rug-shaped painting draped down the stairwell, converting the drab stairwell into a vibrant work of art.
Jessie and Katey mentioned in a recent interview that they’ve known each other since college and have been working on murals together since 2012. The team states that architecture inspires them and attempts to make each of their works as site-specific as possible. The artists remarked, “Our style truly motivated by the environment we’re working in.”
Artist team Jessie and Katey created this stunning rug-shaped mural.
The artists noted that their artwork is loosely based on traditional weaving processes and that they felt it would be amusing to take the textile concept even further by adding tassels. “We’ve done other rug murals over the years,” Jessie and Katey remarked, “but this one is undoubtedly the most spectacular.”
“We essentially gridded out the whole stairway and built an analog loom as we were putting it,” the artists revealed. “There was a lot of math involved, and getting the angles and perspective perfect was difficult at first, but it all came together in the end.” To emphasize the textile connection, we added tassels to the piece’s end, giving the impression that people are walking on a rug.”
The pair enjoyed working in Boone so much that they decided to remain and work there for the whole month.
The couple succeeded in transforming a drab set of stairs into a stunning piece of art!
Jessie and Katey have previously completed larger paintings, such as this six-story structure in Philadelphia.
The Baltimore-based Robert W. Deutsch Foundation
The Maryland Institute of Art is a public art school in Baltimore, Maryland.
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