THE GOOD, THE BUD & THE UGLY
Two-flat’s owner thrilled to have superhero and marijuana-themed mural beautify ‘ugliest building’
Arecently completed mural in Ukrainian Village would have passersby think that we’re being taken over by extraterrestrial superheroes and marijuana.
The mural was painted on a two-flat at 2100 W. Superior St. in April by a Belgian artist named Renaud Taelemans, who goes by “My Name Is Ebo,” to promote a Chicago concert for the electronic dance group Ganja White Night.
Taelemans works with the band, whose two members are from Belgium and now live in Los Angeles, to create murals in advance of its performances in Chicago and elsewhere.
The Chicago painting — roughly 27 feet tall and 37 feet across — portrays two superhero characters and a forest of what Taelemans says are “alien weed plants.”
“It shows a charismatic city like Chicago has been taken over by the organic elements,” Taelemans says.
The superheroes also have appeared in the artist’s other work for the band. The character on the left is “Bad Man,” and the other is “Dark Wobble.”
The promotion for the band isn’t obvious. But the images in the murals also can be seen in the group’s merchandise, videos and visual effects.
Joey Dumas owns the two-flat that’s home to the mural. He’s glad to have it to add something “colorful, interesting” to what he calls the “ugliest building in Chicago.”
Marijuana is central to the painting and to the band, which played the Aragon Ballroom on April 20 — known as a marijuana holiday — and whose name is a take on slang for marijuana.
“Weed has changed the way we make our music,” says Benjamin “Bamby” Bayeul, one of the two musicians in the group, who says they used to smoke it all the time, though these days not so much. “It opens our eyes and our brains to the whole universe.”