Into the Light

Hormel Center
James Hormel LGBTQIA Center Mural - Into the Light

This trompe l'oeil mural was created for the ceiling of the James C. Hormel LGBTQIA Center by artists Mark Evans and Charley Brown. Over a year and a half, they developed a design executed on canvas coated with a rare mixture of marble dust and polymers to create a smooth, plaster-like surface, then finished with aluminum leaf.

From November 1995 to March 1996, the artists worked in their studio on the mural’s two semicircular sections, using thick brown paint and a range of techniques with rags, their hands and thousands of Q-tips to produce luminous shades of burnt umber on silver leaf. The completed 22‑foot‑diameter canvas was installed on the Center’s ceiling on March 13, 1996.

The mural portrays an allegorical construction site where people of all ages work together to move from ignorance into knowledge. Using photographs of friends and colleagues, the artists altered the figures so they are largely unrecognizable, except for those intentionally depicted: James C. Hormel, for whom the Center is named, and Ayse and Robert Kenmore, whose generosity made the mural possible.

The building blocks in the scene bear the names of notable historical figures from various cultures and eras known to have had same-sex relationships. The artists selected these names from lists compiled by the American Library Association’s Rainbow Roundtable (formerly the Gay Lesbian Bisexual Task Force).

List of names featured in the mural

  • Aristotle (384-322 B.C.E.), Athenian philosopher

  • Alexander the Great (356-323 B.C.E.), Macedonian general, ruler

  • Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso, 43 B.C.E.- C.E. 18), Roman poet

  • Hadrian (Publius Aelius Hadrian, C. E. 76-138), Roman ruler

  • Richard I (The Lion Heart, 1157-1199), British ruler

  • Rumi (Jelal al-Din, 1207-1273), Persian poet, mystic

  • Hafiz (Shams ud-Din Mohammed, d. 1389?), Persian poet

  • Donatello (Donato di Niccolo di Betto Bardo, 1386-1466), Italian sculptor

  • Leonardo Da Vinci (1452-1519), Italian artist, inventor, scientist

  • Vasco de Gama (1460-1524), Portuguese admiral, explorer

  • Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527), Italian statesman, philosopher

  • Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564), Italian artist

  • Raphael (Raphael Santi, 1483-1520), Italian artist

  • Correggio (Antonio Allegri Correggio, 1494-1534), Italian artist

  • Suleiman I (1494-1566), Turkish sultan

  • Cellini (Benvenuto Cellini, 1500-1571), Italian sculptor, writer

  • Caravaggio (Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, 1569-1609), Italian artist

  • Frederick the Great (1712-1786), Prussian ruler

  • Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797), British writer

  • Walt Whitman (1819-1892), U.S poet

  • Florence Nightingale (1820-1910), British nurse, reformer

  • Karl Ulrichs (1825-1895), German lawyer, sociologist, reformer

  • Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), U.S. poet

  • Seiku Okuhara (1837-1913), Japanese poet

  • Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893), Russian composer

  • We'Wha (Two-Spirit, 1849-1896) Zuni weaver, potter

  • Oscar Wilde (1856-1900), Irish writer

  • Magnus Hirschfeld (1868-1935), German sociologist

  • Marcel Proust (1871-1922), French writer

  • Willa Cather (1873-1947), U.S. writer

  • Colette (Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette Goudeket, 1873-1954), French writer

  • Gertrude Stein (1874-1946), U.S.-born writer, patron of the arts

  • Isadora Duncan (1877-1927), U.S. choreographer, dancer

  • Wanda Landowska (1879-1959), Polish musician

  • Aaron Copland (1900-1991), U.S. composer

  • Christopher Isherwood (1904-1986), English-born U.S. writer

  • Frida Kahlo (1907-1954), Mexican painter

  • W.H. Auden (Wystan Hugh Auden, 1907-1973), British poet, critic, scholar

  • Jean Genet (1910-1986), French writer

  • Bayard Rustin (1910-1987), U.S. political activist

  • Francis Bacon (1910-1992), Irish-born British painter

  • Tennessee Williams (1911-1985), U.S. playwright

  • Benjamin Britten (1913-1977), British composer

  • Carson McCullers (1917-1967), U.S. writer

  • James Baldwin (1924-1988), U.S. writer

  • Yukio Mishima (Kimitake Hiraoka, 1925-1970), Japanese writer

  • Lorraine Hansberry (1930-1965), U.S. playwright

  • Harvey Milk (1930-1978), U.S. politician, political activist

  • Manuel Puig (1932-1990), Argentine writer

  • Audre Lorde (1934-1992), U.S. writer

  • Reinaldo Arenas (1943-1990), Cuban-born U.S. writer

  • Randy Shilts (1951-1994), U.S. journalist, writer