Artist Caleb Duarte to Install Large Scale Mural at Fresno Yosemite International Airport

Fresno sculptor and Fresno City College professor, Caleb Duarte, has been selected to create and install a mosaic mural at the Fresno International Airport Duarte’s piece, entitled, “You Have Arrived,” is a four story vertical mixed-media mural, which will be installed on the Airport's newly-opened parking garage

Duarte’s winning proposal was selected last fall from a field of 17 applicants, who responded to a statewide call issued by Fresno Arts Council in coordination with the Fresno Airport, who collaboratively created guidelines and a panel review process. The sculpture is visually compatible with the original 1962 mosaic art piece created by Raymond Rice, “Sky and Ground,” on the adjacent terminal.

The proposed design “illustrates an embrace of a figure representing a growing abstract tree with wellgrounded roots, reflecting on our surrounding mountains and forest,” according to Duarte’s submission “The figure’s hands visually state, “I have arrived, I am from here,'' decorated with floating patterns to symbolize flight and aerial views mirroring the existing mosaic mural located across from the proposed wall "

In a facebook post, Duarte described the project’s intent and philosophical basis: “The tone of the main figure will be brown earth tones as the natural color of the earth The main figure is inspired by a series of sculptural performances co-authored within communities in California It derives from sculptural performance and public interventions created within the past years in the realm of Social Practice, Social Sculpture, relational aesthetics and/or community Arts, combining a Social Realist lens with that of the abstract patterns of the existing Raymond Rice mural of 1962; Here it will take on its own interpretation through the aesthetics of natural materials The horizontal patterns symbolize both a corporate farm landscape and those who work the earth.”

Duarte will use painted ceramic relief, mosaic tiles, and painted river rock to create the final design, which is expected to be installed in 2023.