Parsons students come together to commemorate Nicki Muller’s life and art

 

There it hung, adding color to the tar black walls that surrounded it. A portrait of Nicki Muller, painted by Parsons Fine Arts senior student Vanessa Turi, served as the focal point of her studio space. “I wanted the portrait to make the viewer see someone important, powerful and majestic,” Turi, a close friend and classmate of Muller, said.

The portrait of Muller would have been a gift, but Turi finished it on October 22, the day Muller died. Muller, 21 at the time, had been living with a high grade glioma — a brain tumor — after it was discovered in April of 2011. She previously had a cancerous tumor when she was 13, which had been in remission.

Since her passing, Muller’s classmates have found themselves simultaneously mourning a friend while taking part in a new community — one built around the closeness they felt because of their loss. “Her death grounded the Fine Arts students into a family, especially after going to her hometown in Babylon for the wake. The effect she has had on us is outrageous,” Fine Arts senior, Taylor Falco, said.

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Daniela Lloveras, a BA/BFA senior studying psychology and Fine Arts, first had the idea of replicating Turi’s 4×4’ canvas as a mural on the corner of Waterbury and Meserole Street, right outside of Lloveras’ AMO art studio in Bushwick, Brooklyn. “The walls in the vicinity are mostly covered in murals and some are memorials, so it seemed like a perfect spot,” she said.

Lloveras was given the official papers from her landlord on November 10. She, Turi, and Fine Arts seniors Moises Pellerano and Jono Pisano, started painting before Thanksgiving break.  More students have helped out on the project since then. “Working on the mural makes us feel like she’s still around in a comforting in a way. It makes it so that all of us are together,” Turi said.

Emanuele Castano, a social psychologist and Associate Professor of Psychology at Eugene Lang College, has researched this phenomenon. “When faced with death, both because of this sense of loss and because it is a reminder of our own inevitable death, it is a common response to strengthen our sense of belonging to our community — however defined,” he said.

Members of the Fine Arts community at Parsons have worked together to eulogize Muller as both a friend and artist. “It brought our class together to celebrate Muller’s life by doing what she loved to do, which was ‘MAKE WORK.’ This provides a perfect platform to make art, collaborate, mourn and commemorate Nicki Muller’s life,” said Fine Arts senior Tara Long.

“Nobody else could understand unless they were part of our community,” said Turi. “It’s something we share in common that is rare and precious. It is a spiritual connection we have with her.”

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Although weather and finals have postponed the mural’s completion, Turi, Lloveras and other Fine Arts students have continued to work on sketches of the mural — a faded out version of Turi’s original painting, with the inclusion of the name of Muller’s website and “Babylon” — Muller’s Long Island hometown —  written in the background.

The Fine Arts students involved encourage anyone to help paint or even watch. “The mural for Muller functions as more than just a mural. It is a symbol of collaboration amongst artists who would never have thought to combine their talents together,” Kathryn Chadason, a Fine Arts senior, said. “Nicki always brought out the best in each of us, and the mural is a representation of her influence on us as a whole.”

Last spring, while undergoing chemotherapy, Muller wrote, “Let me be remembered through thought and divine power,” on her website. Since then, her friends in the Fine Arts department have been using art as a means to remember Muller. Parsons Fine Arts Galleries, which occupy the hallway outside the studio spaces, now serve as a memorial for the former BA/BFA student.

“We wanted her to be in the space with us even though she was no longer there,” Falco, one of the students who played a role in naming the space The Nicki Ray Muller Gallery, said. Turi’s tribute to Muller is a present to the Muller family. She hopes that the mural will serve as a reminder to the Parsons community of Muller’s work and talent.

Jarrod Kentrell, a Fine Arts senior student at Parsons, shared the same sentiment as his classmates.

“I think that this is a good opportunity for us to do something that [Muller] always believed in and that was to just keep working, so I think that as long as we keep working, she’ll always exist.”