Murals at VAC: Codex Two Thousand Twenty-Six
Carlos Rosales-Silva and spring 2026 UT advanced painting students, Codex Two Thousand Twenty-Six, 2026. Preliminary drawing for a mural in acrylic paint. Courtesy of Carlos Rosales-Silva.
Codex Two Thousand Twenty-Six is a collaborative mural painted and developed by Assistant Professor of Painting and Drawing Carlos Rosales-Silva and his advanced painting students. Students have been tasked with creating a pictographic symbol that represents an urgent concept or question they are contending with. The references for historical and contemporary pictographic symbols and collections are wide ranging: Mexica Codices, European folk symbols, illuminated manuscripts, street signs, emojis, and memes, to name a few. The place setting for these symbols is a representation of a codex at mural scale, a contemporary pictorial collection, and a snapshot of a generation of painters and their concerns at the University of Texas at Austin.
Participating student artists will be announced in January 2026.
About Murals at VAC
The Murals at VAC program brings together the University of Texas at Austin Studio Art faculty, students, and the Visual Arts Center team. These projects arise from coursework, translating craft exercises and conceptual ideas explored in the classroom into dynamic public projects for the Department of Art and Art History and the wider art community. For many participating students, the program is the first opportunity for a major public presentation, serving as a critical entry point for professional discussions on large-scale installation, publicness, and community engagement.