BRICK – Students at Brick Memorial High School have transformed the school environment with their bold and vibrant murals.
Nearly a decade ago, Brick Memorial Visual Arts Educator and Art Club Advisor Judy Harzer encouraged her students to paint murals. The artwork quickly gained popularity, bringing attention of the school community resulting in more requests for student work.
In 2018, Harzer realized her weekly club could no longer meet the demand and decided to design and propose a curriculum for a comprehensive, hands-on mural making class.
“During the pandemic, I started realizing worldwide, [mural painting] was the largest art initiative in the world. I applied for a national fellowship and they sent me to Berlin, Brussels, London, Bristol, and I got to work with some of the artists who mentored Banksy,” Harzer said. “I realized how important large scale public work was. You see how economically it transforms a community.”
The program addresses the art historical context of public art, concept design, painting techniques, color theory, proposal writing and more.
Since its inception, more than 70 murals have been painted in both Brick Memorial and Brick Township High School. The class expands beyond the boundaries of the classroom into public spaces and hallways, while offering students real-world experiences.
“To the best of our knowledge, this is the only officially approved high school class in the state of New Jersey and possibly the country, that is devoted to the Art of Mural Making,” Harzer noted.
On June 5, Harzer and the mural art classes hosted a Mural Tour to showcase all the new murals that were painted during the 2024-25 school year as well as their graduating seniors. A major part of this year’s tour was the Henri Matisse inspired installation located in the BMHS Library.
The installation offers a fully immersive experience where the space has been transformed into a living canvas. It features painted floors, walls, windows, and furniture painted with expressive color and simplified organic shapes. The installation expanded to the floor after paint was accidentally spilled on the carpet.
“This is inspired by Henri Matisse, the French artist from the 1920s, and evolved to become this whole immersive space that the students will use and expand next year,” Harzer said. “Mr. Sarluca really inadvertently allowed me to do it because we had a spill and I thought, ‘let’s just cover it up.’”
Mason Triano, a senior who will be attending Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University in the fall, shared how art has been her passion her whole life and is grateful to share her work.
“I’ve always been proud of myself for being an artist, but I haven’t always been super confident in my work,” Triano said. “The fact that I have this opportunity to display something publicly in my school for all my fellow students to see, is really meaningful to me and I have now learned to become proud of my art, and I am very proud of my mural.”
Her mural “Influential Women in Modern Music” features modern music artist such as Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande, and more. Triano shared her artwork on TikTok, with her videos gaining thousands of views as well as many opinionated comments.
“The one video had some backlash which was a little hard to take, but being an artist, you have to learn to push through that and again, be confident in your work,” Triano said. “My mural is influential women in music and I chose that because it’s not only something that I love, but also I know that a lot of my fellow students love, and I wanted something relatable that everyone could enjoy in the halls.”
Harzer explained how senior Natalie Johnson is a great example of how many students who take the mural class are not all pursuing the visual arts, as Johnson is pursuing animal science pre-professional to go into a veterinary track.
“I think this program is really great and it allows people to express themselves visually. As you can see, we turned an almost boring building into this explosion of color,” Johnson said. “I painted a semi colon mural for suicide awareness. I did that because I feel like that’s something that needs to be touched on in schools and brings awareness to a lot of problems that could happen to teenagers.”
Makenna Ellis, who will be majoring in Pharmacy Studies, painted a mural of the human body which was intentionally placed outside anatomy teacher Mr. O’Donnell’s classroom. The mural has detailed illustrations of skeletal, muscular, digestive, and respiratory systems to make science feel more engaging.
At the end of the tour, Harzer also recognized the members of the Art Club and underclassmen who assisted with several of the murals.
“This is supposed to be collaborative and that’s what’s great about this process is that they’re working together. You’re not always the Lone Ranger, doing it yourself. So really, I’m so appreciative about all of them,” Harzer said.
“I really commend Brick Township Schools because they were willing to give me the freedom to paint on their walls and even their floors. We hope to further expand this program inspired by the belief that art builds and unites communities,” Harzer added.
