ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) — Thousands of visitors are slated to pour in for the 2025 Balloon Fiesta. And if they make a stop at the corner of University and Central in Nob Hill, they’ll find a recently finished mural epitomizing Duke City.
“Mother” is 6,000 square feet worth of Albuquerque imagery featuring a massive roadrunner, some lowriders, and, of course, a classic Route 66 sign. The piece took five weeks to complete, although the idea started long before then. It’s part of a project led by the city and Meow Wolf to adorn Albuquerque with Route-66-centric art ahead of next year’s Centennial celebration.
Noé Barnett and Travis Bruce Black are the artists behind the piece. Their mural brings two vastly different styles of art together to send this message: Albuquerque is to be appreciated. At the center of the piece, Barnett’s realistic style depicts a woman closing her eyes, with road and trees leading to her face. “The figure in the middle is my mom,” said Barnett. “Because Route 66 being called the mother road, I wanted to think of a way to bring that to life. And so that’s my mom in the center of the wall. Trying to show the emotion, the peace of being grounded. That was a cool, cool element for me, just to include her.”
Aspects of Barnett’s art bleed over to the left and right portions of the mural, where we find illustrations of Albuquerque culture all wrapped up in a vintage, video game design. That’s thanks to Black, who says the style comes from “just being a dad and kind of revisiting my childhood with my kids as they grew up.”
“And for me, they just represent like joy, my personal journey but also my kids as they’re like, you know, playing around with Lego Duplo. But I come from a time of the Commodore 64 personal computer where seeing these very abstracted images, they’re basically like little minimalist pieces,” says Black. “And your brain has to interpret them. So instead of being fed the most wonderful graphics you’ve ever seen, I like this idea that your brain has to interface with them. I call them the user interface series.”
Barnett and Black are both University of New Mexico graduates with years of art experience under their belt. Barnett, an Albuquerque native, said he’s been professionally working as an artist since he graduated in 2018. “Primarily, that’s how I make most of my living. I started doing work in the fine arts space, gallery shows and stuff, and have continued to do that,” said Barnett. “But I make most of my income from painting walls.”…