Painter, teacher in Bogart conveys capsule history of UGA with mural

Jacob Copetillo is a big-picture kind of guy, in both his viewpoint and his artistic creations.

A painter and sculptor who graduated from the University of Georgia in May 2008, Copetillo teaches art classes at Prince Avenue Christian School in Bogart and recently completed work on a mural that will hang permanently in the Tate Student Center on the UGA campus.

"Murals are a result of my natural form of thinking," said Copetillo, an Arizona native now living in Athens. "I like to think of conceptual pieces that raise questions like why we exist and why we're created the way we are. I create boxes, paintings and images that cause people to look within themselves and find out why they're here."

The two-paneled mural (or diptych), which is 461/2 feet wide by 101/2 feet tall, was created during the summer for a recent installation. Copetillo estimates he worked "eight to 14 hours a day, five or six days a week" to complete the piece.

Copetillo, who also has shown his work at Athens Vineyard Church, said he was informed by a friend that Willie Banks, UGA's director of campus life and the Tate Student Center, had put out the call for proposals for a mural at Tate.

"I believe we had 15 entrants, a combination of students, faculty and community members," Banks said. "A student committee, the Tate Student Center Advisory Board, made the decision to go with (Copetillo's) idea. They took a look at all the proposals and decided unanimously which one to go with.

"Each of the proposals included a sketch of what they wanted to do with the space, but also a written narrative of the concept behind the art and why they chose what they chose for the mural."

The mural depicts a host of images of life at the University of Georgia from both history and modern times, with several of the Savannah-bred Ugas included, as well as students studying and graduating, a depiction of the Arch and many other memorable

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