Edo Rosenblith grew up seeing his dad paint. It made art accessible and understandable to him, and this exposure made him want to be an artist himself.

“His paintings were all over our house,” he said with a smile. “Art was demystified to me. I remember thinking, ‘Doesn’t everyone’s dad make art? Isn’t everyone’s house full of their parents’ art?’ That made it easy to be an artist.”

Today, Rosenblith, 30, wants to demystify art for others in the way his father did for him. To do this, his new ongoing exhibition, “Let Me Help You Make a Mural,” will be on display at COCA (Center of Creative Arts) through Aug. 25. Admission is free, and he said people can come throughout the summer to see the mural to its finish.

“You can see the mural evolve and change,” he said. “Instead of seeing a gallery with finished work, it’s like seeing the process of making art, so it’s an exciting, fun opportunity to do something different.”

Rosenblith said he helped create the exhibition’s concept after COCA curator Yvonne Osei said she wanted an experimental exhibition for the summer. He said he is excited to be working on such a large project.

“I’m usually forced to do something much smaller, so instead of two to three weeks, I get three months,” he said. “It’s sort of a nice opportunity to blur the lines between an artist’s studio and an exhibition space…It’s pulling the curtain behind the creative process so people can come in at any time and see me working and even participate in the creation.”

The finished mural will cover COCA’s Millstone Gallery, including its columns, window spaces and multiple 12-feet tall walls. While it’s already very detailed today, only about 10 percent of the mural is finished, according to Rosenblith. He said the gallery’s large and unique architecture is an interesting challenge and will make an even more exciting viewing experience.

“[Working with architecture] is a very old idea in the art community,” he said. “It goes all the way back to cave paintings. Art being tied to a place where you have to go and journey to that place to experience it is a very nice idea … I think in this sort of day and age with social media, where we are always consuming images on our phone, tying art to a place, something that you can’t fully get just by looking at a picture, I think it’s a unique opportunity.”

Rosenblith’s mural only uses black-and-white colored materials, and he said this decision is inspired by the black-and-white work of Pablo Picasso.

“Often [Picasso] would remove color from his work when he decided just to focus on content,” he said. “It’s a way to be more direct with the audience.”

Rosenblith said the “main theme” of his work throughout his career has been the intersection of the personal and the political, and this holds true for his new mural. For example, one section shows a drone flying over the words “me.”

His work is partly inspired by his identity as a dual citizen, he explained. He was born in Tel Aviv in 1988 and moved to the Midwest in 1989. Growing up, his family returned to Israel in the summer to visit his father’s side of the family.

“It’s always good to get a different perspective on the world that’s very different from your own,” he said. “People who don’t do that tend to get complacent I guess. I find travel to be a great way to experience things firsthand and see faraway places.”

Rosenblith said being a dual citizen has an effect on his mindset.

“In the back of your head, you’re like, ‘Oh, I can always move to this other place and have a different life.’” he said.

Rosenblith said his parents inspired him to be an artist, but his time at school solidified this decision.

“I was a pretty lazy student academically especially in the early part of my life. The only thing that came naturally to me was making art,” he said. “When I was in high school, my art teacher told me about art school…and I was like, ‘Woah, there’s a place where you can just make art. That sounds pretty good.”

Rosenblith said he is thankful for his parents’ career as artists because it helped them encourage his education, as opposed to other parents who are less “enthusiastic” about art school.

He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in painting from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2011 and a master’s degree in visual art from Washington University in 2017.

The intersection of personal and political issues was the subject of his thesis work at RISD. For the project, he painted a series of 10 images showing how his family moved to Israel after the Holocaust. The following images traced the family’s history to himself. Rosenblith said it’s important to learn from one’s family history rather than ignore it. He said he’s still doing that today.

“I think often we like to separate ourselves from these greater historical narratives. Like an island, away from this thing. We don’t like to think we’re affected by greater events. That’s sort of what I’m doing with this mural. Thinking about these larger narratives and how I intersect with them,” he said.

Rosenblith hopes to work on an outdoor mural after he finishes the exhibition at COCA. But his work goes beyond just murals. He is currently working on an illustrated poetry collection.