Title: Downtown
Artist: Robert Delgado
Material: Ceramic tile
Four brick-clad light columns with ceramic tile mosaics on each column surface (16 in all), eight mosaics on rail side walls of utility cabinets and three large mosaics on street side walls. Ceramic tile mosaics consist of photo silkscreened images of local past and present history and world cultural motifs.
The tiles are silk-screen glazed and airbrushed with images created by stenciling. The process is complex, with the historic photographs divided into sections of imagery, and then each section being divided into high contrast darks and lights. Stencils are made from these dark and light facets. The stencils are applied to the tile and block out areas of the tile for airbrushing. Finally, glaze is added by using a squeeze bottle to create colorful trailings across the images. The glazed tiles are then low-fired in a kiln. The imagery for this station is drawn from photos of downtown St. Paul, including Mickey's Diner, the fountain sculpture in Rice Park, the staff of the Gopher Grill, the Lowry Hotel and others.
Born and raised in Koreatown of Los Angeles, Roberto L. Delgado is both a public and studio artist whose mural works feature his encounters with the people, neighborhood and community that surround him.
Delgado spent nearly two decades in Chiapas State, Mexico, where he practiced and refined his mural painting skills. He eventually began to include mediums, such as photosilkscreen and tiles, into his public art practice.
Delgado was the recipient of the 1995 Fulbright Teaching Fellowship in Honduras and the 1987 Fulbright Research Fellowship in Mexico. His achievements include commissioned projects with local governments in Los Angeles, San Jose and the Twin Cities.
Delgado presented several concept sketches to convey the feel of the completed mosaics. Each mosaic integrated several images and “drawing” with glaze. Here is an example of one of the mosaics and the images that are integrated. Can you find each image in the final concept sketch?
