The University of Iowa Stanley Museum of Art allowed media inside on April 12 to meet the artist painting a mural in the lobby and to take a brief tour of the gallery spaces.

Odili Donald Odita, an abstract painter and professor of painting at Philadelphia’s Temple University, is creating a mural in the lobby that will be visible from the street level and will be the first work visitors will encounter when they enter the building.

Odita’s mural is a response to one of the museum’s collection highlights, Jackson Pollock’s 1943 “Mural.”

Odita spent time in Iowa City as a child when his parents were graduate students at the UI in the 1970s. His work draws upon a range of influences, including conceptual art, West African textiles, and the politics of space.

The museum will open to the public on Aug. 26.