Graffiti News

Madeline Pender, a University of New Hampshire (UNH) alumna who now teaches at the university, has created a mural for the Dunkin' store inside UNH's Memorial Union Building in Durham, New Hampshire. According to The Boston Globe, Pender cut the ceremonial ribbon at the store's reopening, and the mural includes a portrait of Pender herself in cap and gown.

What does the Dunkin' UNH mural show?

The mural runs the length of the store and is built from several scenes of UNH life. According to The Boston Globe, it shows student athletes in action, Thompson Hall, the Wildcat statue, and groups of students holding coffee and doughnuts. Most of the figures are generalised representations of UNH students rather than real people.

Two figures are specific. One is Pender in cap and gown — not the most prominent figure, but front and center. "I had to take the opportunity to just, you know, do a 'Where's Waldo' moment in there," she told the Globe. The other is a painter at an easel: Eli Bryant, a close friend of Pender's and a 2024 UNH graduate. The painting Bryant is working on in the mural shows a vessel that UNH students built.

Who is Madeline Pender?

Pender earned a bachelor's degree in painting from UNH in 2023 and a master's degree in art education in 2024. She taught art at a nearby high school and has returned to UNH as an adjunct professor teaching introductory drawing. She graduated from Winnacunnet High School in Hampton in 2019.

The pandemic hit during her first year at UNH, and its disruptions lasted. "I would say senior year was the first time that it started to feel normal again, truly," Pender told The Boston Globe. She said she feels she never truly left the university and that the mural "summarizes my time at UNH very well."

How was the mural made?

The mural is not painted directly on the wall; it is a printed collage of hand-painted work. According to The Boston Globe, Pender developed several iterations of the design with Dunkin' and UNH representatives, hand-painted the elements, and those elements were assembled digitally and printed onto the wall covering. Pender said the stakeholders respected that her process would not involve artificial intelligence, and that the designer who assembled the piece used brush strokes from her own paintings rather than generating anything.

The mural is part of a redesign that makes the franchisee-run store a Dunkin' "Signature Series" location, a format with custom decor and branding that reflects the local community. Dunkin' said it is the first Signature Series store on a college campus in New England.

What to look for in a commissioned mural

The UNH store shows how a brand-commissioned interior mural can carry a place's memory through a local artist. A hand-painted-then-printed piece is a different medium from a spray-painted wall outside, but hidden details — a self-portrait, a friend at an easel — are an old pleasure of looking at murals, and they reward people who know where to look.

If you visit the campus, compare Thompson Hall and the Wildcat statue in the mural with the real ones. If you spot a mural or a hidden detail near you, you can share it on the Wallscape feed.

Source: The Boston Globe