Beyond Gravity Murals | Decatur, Alabama
Alabama mural artist Banks Compton created a series of eleven murals for Beyond Gravity at the company's aerospace manufacturing facility in Decatur, Alabama.
The project combines large-scale painting, aerospace imagery, dimensional elements, graphic design, and augmented reality to tell the story of what happens inside the facility.
Three of the murals incorporate augmented reality, allowing employees and visitors to point a smartphone at the artwork and watch elements of the paintings leave the wall and animate in digital space.
The project was created in collaboration with BrandXR, bringing Banks' painted designs into an interactive digital environment. Beyond Gravity later highlighted the project publicly, describing the murals as artwork that could be “brought to life” through augmented reality and crediting Banks Compton and BrandXR with helping make the concept possible.
Client: Beyond Gravity
Location: Decatur, Alabama
Artist: Banks Compton
Project: Corporate & Aerospace Murals
Number of Murals: 11
Interactive Murals: 3 Augmented-Reality Experiences
Additional Artwork: T-Shirt & Postcard Designs
AR Collaboration: BrandXR
Themes: Space, Rockets, Planets, Engineering & Aerospace Manufacturing
Project at a Glance
Windows Into Space
Another series of murals transforms interior walls into individual windows looking out into space.
Banks painted scenes depicting planets, the Sun, the Moon, and other celestial imagery. Custom 3D-printed framessurround the paintings, creating the illusion that each mural is an actual dimensional window opening onto the solar system.
Together, the series brings the subject of Beyond Gravity's work into the everyday spaces used by employees.
Additional artwork was created for areas including the facility's break room, extending the visual identity throughout the building rather than concentrating everything in a single lobby mural.
What Does Beyond Gravity Do?
Beyond Gravity is an international space company headquartered in Switzerland that develops and manufactures mission-critical technology for rockets, satellites, and space missions. Its products include payload fairings, launcher structures, satellite components, payload adapters, separation systems, electronics, and other aerospace technologies.
The company's Decatur-area facility specializes in large-scale composite structures for launch vehicles. Beyond Gravity has manufactured major components for United Launch Alliance's Vulcan Centaur rocket, including payload fairings, interstage adapters, heat shields, and payload attachment structures.
A payload fairing is essentially the protective shell at the top of a rocket that shields satellites and other valuable cargo as the vehicle travels through Earth's atmosphere. Beyond Gravity is a leading supplier of this composite technology, with its products flying aboard major American and European launch vehicles.
That work happening in Decatur became part of the story Banks wanted the murals to communicate.
An Interactive Lobby Mural
One of the central pieces was created for the facility's lobby and designed to introduce employees and visitors to the work taking place inside Beyond Gravity.
Rather than simply creating decorative space imagery, Banks developed artwork connected to the rockets, components, and aerospace technology produced at the facility.
The mural then takes that storytelling a step further through augmented reality.
Using a smartphone, viewers can activate digital elements associated with the physical painting and watch the imagery animate beyond the surface of the wall.
The experience turns the mural into an interactive introduction to Beyond Gravity and the Decatur facility.
Taking Augmented Reality Beyond the Wall
The interactive component wasn't limited to the murals themselves.
Banks' artwork was also adapted into postcards and a T-shirt design, with augmented-reality elements allowing the imagery to animate when viewed through a smartphone.
This allowed the same visual storytelling developed for the physical facility to exist across multiple formats.
The result became more than a collection of murals—it developed into a visual system connecting painting, digital animation, dimensional fabrication, print design, and corporate storytelling.
Art & Technology
The Beyond Gravity project represents one of Banks' most technology-driven mural commissions.
The physical paintings provide the foundation, while augmented reality introduces movement and digital storytelling that would be impossible within a traditional static mural.
Beyond Gravity itself later highlighted the project and quoted Office Manager Laura Ard, who said Banks quickly understood the company's vision and introduced the idea of incorporating augmented reality as the mural designs developed.
For a company whose work is centered around engineering, manufacturing, innovation, and space exploration, the technology allowed the artwork itself to reflect that same spirit of experimentation.
About Banks Compton
Banks Compton is an Alabama mural artist, public artist, and RISD alumnus creating large-scale artwork for businesses, institutions, cities, schools, and communities throughout Alabama and across the United States.
His work combines storytelling, nature, local culture, branding, and site-specific design. Projects such as Beyond Gravity also explore how emerging technology can expand the way audiences interact with traditional painted murals.
Looking for a Mural Artist in Decatur or North Alabama?
Banks creates custom murals and public art for corporate campuses, manufacturers, businesses, institutions, public spaces, and communities throughout Decatur, Huntsville, North Alabama, and the Southeast.
Projects can incorporate company history, technology, products, local stories, dimensional elements, interactive experiences, and augmented reality.
