Rise of murals in Milwaukee

Public murals changed the face of Milwaukee and neighboring communities in 2020.

As memorials, as protests, as expressions of identity and as branding, public murals changed the face of Milwaukee and neighboring communities in 2020.

As long as it remains, a mural of the late George Floyd painted by Chris Burke and other artists at East North Avenue and North Holton Street will serve as an emblem of the Black Lives Matter movement here.

In Walker’s Point, March for Our Lives installed a comics-style mural designed by Jamal Igle that depicts an elder talking with young people about the 1967 fair housing marches in Milwaukee — activism echoed this year in more than 200 days of actions organized by The Peoples Revolution in protest of police brutality and social injustice.

A few blocks away, a mural of Joel Acevedo has been painted on the wall at South Sixth Street and West Greenfield Avenue. A former Milwaukee police officer has been charged with firstdegree reckless homicide in Acevedo’s death.

Thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, the scheduled Democratic National Convention here deflated into an online event. But in spite of that fizzle, Shepard Fairey, the artist behind the Barack Obama “Hope” poster, worked with local artists to install a “Voting Rights Are Human Rights” mural at 759 N. Milwaukee St.

Speaking of the pandemic, Mauricio Ramírez created “Frontline Heroes,” a mural honoring medical workers, at South Sixth Street and West Lincoln Avenue. Ken Brown incorporated images of essential workers into “The Hero in You,” a new mural at MacArthur Square, 841 N. Lovell St.

Wallpapered City, which has played a leading role in catalyzing mural projects in Milwaukee in recent years, managed Visual Vibes on Villard, which brought art by Ras’Ammar Nsoroma, Byada Meredith, Chacho Lopez, Kevin Soens and Teresa Sahar to the neighborhood of North 35th Street and West Villard Avenue. And there was a bonus: artist Aerosol Kingdom (Justin Suarez) added a mural of a great horned owl to the Villard project after finishing his “Current Events” mural of water creatures at 546 S. Water St.

Young muralists who added to the city’s displays in 2020 include Grace Collins, a ninth-grader at Reagan High School. After her entry won a contest sponsored by the Marcus Performing Arts Center, her image of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was installed in November on the north side of the King Hall building, 3413 N. King Drive.

SENTINEL ZHIHAN HUANG / MILWAUKEE JOURNAL Artist Chris Burke stands in front of a new mural in memory of George Floyd at the corner of North Avenue and Holton Street.

ZHIHAN HUANG / MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL A mural by Mauricio Ramírez honoring medical workers on the front lines during the COVID-19 pandemic is at the intersection of South 6th Street and West Lincoln Avenue.

SENTINEL MICHAEL SEARS/MILWAUKEE JOURNAL Artist Shepard Fairey, creator of the Barack Obama “Hope” poster, was behind “Voting Rights Are Human Rights,” a mural painted this summer on the Colby-Abbot Building, 759 N. Milwaukee St.

MARCUS PERFORMING ARTS CENTER Grace Collins’ mural of Martin Luther King Jr. was installed in November on the north side of the King Hall building, 3413 N. King Drive, in the Harambee neighborhood. Collins is a student at Reagan High School. She won a contest sponsored by the Marcus Performing Arts Center.

JIM HIGGINS/MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL “Fire in the Sky” by Aerosol Kingdom (a.k.a. Justin Suarez) at 5268 N. 35th St., part of the Visual Vibes on Villard project.