Charlotte Profs Thomas Schmidt and Erik Waterkotte Create Art For Truist Center Plaza
Gracing Truist Center Plaza on Tryon Street is a new art installation created collaboratively by UNC Charlotte art professors Thomas Schmidt and Erik Waterkotte.
The installation is a printed, site-specific mural that adorns the existing panels of the Truist Center building; it is visible from the plaza and the tower above in the heart of uptown Charlotte.
Schmidt and Waterkotte received the commission from Hodges Taylor Art Consultancy, on behalf of Truist Bank, in the summer of 2023.
“The client was interested in representing local artists and building a connection with UNC Charlotte through this project,” Schmidt said.
As they developed their ideas, the artists took inspiration from the art nouveau design of the Truist Center, the history of Charlotte’s textile industry and the rolling landscape of North Carolina’s Piedmont. They used high-tech digital 3-D modeling to generate patterns and imagery, playing with layering to achieve a moiré optical effect.
“Over the following year, we developed several design iterations and printing proofs, responding to feedback to refine the final outcome,” Schmidt said.
The result is a “twisting, dimensional graphic pattern,” drawn from ornamentation on the Truist Center façade, that evokes the patterns of woven fiber.
Waterkotte, who is an associate professor of print media, devoted hours and hours “to developing subtle color variations and layered effects, which were essential to achieving the vibrant result we ultimately reached,” Schmidt said.
The color palette for “Interwoven” draws directly from the stone, metal, and brick materials found throughout the plaza, the artists’ statement explains. “Each graphic layer is intentionally offset from the others, generating an optical vibration that reflects the vibrancy of the site’s materials and history.”
The mural was printed on durable vinyl, Schmidt said, and applied to the architectural overhang above the plaza.