The Office: The Story of Us
Location: 503 Lackawanna Ave, Scranton, PA 18503 | Date: 2023
Artist: Designed, illustrated, and painted by Hagopian Arts
The Office is a critically acclaimed sitcom that takes place in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and brings to light humor within the seemingly mundane, the day-to-day moment-to-moment interactions of everyday people. Hagopian Arts created the only official mural of The Office: The The Story of Us, a project of Scranton Tomorrow, supported by Peacock, NBC, and Universal Studios. With this 17 x 86 foot mural Hagopian Arts' captures the timeless nature of the show, rendering the subtleties of each character while highlighting some of the most hilarious and noteworthy moments of the show within the colorful geometric pattern. With the authorization of the 17 actors depicted, their portraits were painted with a highly defined fine art aesthetic. The black and white portraits are juxtaposed with a colorful geometric pattern containing illustrations that symbolize hilarious and noteworthy quotes, themes, and moments of the show. The Electric City sign is also prominently featured in the center of the mural, a strong visual affinity with the show's hometown of Scranton, PA. This celebratory mural is an ideal artistic platform to uphold and document the legacy of the hit TV show, The Office.
"Michael Scott is back in Scranton, thanks to a West Philly artist", The Philadelphia Inquirer, Bedatri D. Choudhury, August 31, 2023 — The setting for the long-running NBC sitcom, The Office, is home to the fictional Dunder Mifflin Paper Company and its gamut of employees, and now it’s also home to a new mural put together by a team led by West Philadelphia mural artist Kala Hagopian.
The mural features black-and-white portraits of The Office characters juxtaposed against a colorful background embellished with some of the best one-liners from the show. Yes, “Identity theft is not a joke, Jim” has its pride of place. The work is completed; it’s unveiling is Oct. 6.
Hagopian, who studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, founded the Eco Mural Project in 2018 and has been busy painting “ecologically-themed public art pieces” all over Philadelphia:a scene from a coral reef on the wall of a deli, a green frog peeping out of a foliage of purple water lilies, a large luna moth by the 30th Street Station, and more.
It was her “The Mercantile Library Mural” in Center City that impressed Rose Randazzo, chair of Scranton Tomorrow’s Mural Arts Program. Randazzo then got in touch with the artist over The Office-themed mural.
Hagopian first visited the mural site on Scranton’s 503 Lackawanna Ave. with Randazzo in the winter of 2020. Since then it has been an arduous process for her and her team. “We were painting a large scale mural with many tiny brushes,” she said.
Read the Interview Below:
First things first. How on earth do you make a mural?
So initially, I talk to folks about the design and gather information. Sometimes people have a lot of input and it’s really up to me to translate what I’m getting from them. There’s a lot of research that goes into the design, gathering reference material, organizing that material. And then within the design process, it’s really about being able to see what works best together visually, within the space.
Once that’s approved, I paint my murals on polytab (a thin synthetic material), which is what most Philly mural artists use.
It’s usually split into 5-by-5 pieces. So the whole mural design gets split up. We take these pieces and tack sections of the cloth together onto the studio wall. So this 86-foot-by-27-foot design was 90 of those sheets. We were literally just painting it section by section on the wall.
Using this method is awesome, because it lets me work all year round in my studio, and I can get in as much detail as I want, without being affected by the weather or the seasons.
Timelapse Portrait Painting for The Office: The Story of Us
How does it all go up and stay?
We use mural gel, which permanently binds and adheres the cloth to the surface of the wall. It takes on the wall texture, so it looks like it was painted directly on the wall. Then we go in and do touch ups on all the seams. John Zerbe and Malachi Floyd installed the mural over a 15-day period. Then I was literally painting over every seam of that mural. I had a great time because I was in my studio all summer. So for the first time all summer, I was outside on the scaffolding.
Then we sealed it with a UV-protected sealer, which protects the mural from fading.
How did you decide on the aesthetic and design?
I’ve always loved painting portraits. For this mural, it was really awesome to get back into portrait painting. And then I carried over my signature style of patterning, and juxtaposed that with the realistic portraits.