METAMORPHOSES
MEOW WOLF GRAPEVINE (2023)
When Meow Wolf opened its fourth location in Grapevine, TX, I was commissioned to work on the Front of House area’s mural. The mural was nearly 3000 square feet and installation took place over 60 days.
Meow Wolf gave me a very loose prompt and I was given a lot of creative freedom. The prompt mentioned an underwater adventure with sea monsters. I was told that I could follow the prompt or come up with my own unique design. Since the mural would be the first thing visitors see before entering into the rest of the exhibition, I wanted it to be a visual vehicle that evoke the sense of traveling between worlds. I created multiple composite sea creatures like a zebracamp (a mer-zebra), a two headed bull-dragon sea serpent, a dragon turtle that resembles a Texas horny toad (a nod to the local Dallas wildlife) and a pair of mer-cat and mer-dog paying homage to the company’s name. Combining familiar motifs with unfamiliar ones simultaneously grounds visitors to the place they are visiting, while hinting at the sensory transformative journey they are about to embark on.
I was originally commissioned to complete half of this hallway, but Meow Wolf’s creative team fell in love with my initial proposal and decided to give me the whole hallway. It was my first time working on a large scale project, and it has truly been a transformative experience for me. Thus, I have aptly named the project after Ovid’s poem, Metamorphoses.
