Molly Zakrajsek faced a decidedly urban challenge when she was approached to paint a massive mural spanning the north-facing wall of Green Element Resale at 6241 N. Broadway in Edgewater.
Namely, how do you communicate with art that’s behind a chain-link fence on a busy street?
The canvas was a wall facing the empty lot next door to the thrift store, the ground covered with dirt and broken concrete. The fence is about eight feet tall.
“Because it’s gated, I wanted to design it with the intention that you couldn’t get up close,” says Zakrajsek, who works out of her Rogers Park studio. “What would it look like if you’re driving or walking?”
Zakrajsek turned to an art movement she often subscribes to: biomorphism, or “abstract forms or images that evoke naturally occurring forms such as plants, organisms and body parts,” according to the definition from New York’s Museum of Modern Art.
The result is a mural titled “Cultivating Harmony.” Its Mother Nature concept includes bright colors, organic features and patterning inspired by Eastern European, Mexican and Latin American folk art — immigrant communities well represented in Chicago. Zakrajsek painted it over three weeks during the summer of 2017.
“I’m not a realist artist, but I draw from nature,” she says. “Nature, especially in the city — like bright colors in the city — really enhances an environment and creates a sense of joy and harmony.”
Those images also help cover up deteriorating walls and transform spaces, she says.
“It changes the daily stroll to the train or school or work,” Zakrajsek says. “That is the important part of what a muralist does, thinking about transforming environments.”
The resulting mural can be seen while walking or driving south on North Broadway. Most of the wall is painted with a mossy green background. Brightly patterned flowers in shades of red, orange, pink, yellow, blue and white resemble tulips, daisies, dahlias and more sprouting up from the concrete. A butterfly, sporting hues of blue, flits above the angular and bulbous blooms and petals.
Behind the blossoms a nurturing face seems to hover above them all, eyes closed, her mouth in a contented smile.
As the building stretches east, another story rises in the back, which is painted sky blue with a blue and pink bird hovering in the corner. Raindrops drip onto the blooms. Then building drops back down to one story, which is painted pink.
Green Element Resale owner Brian Haag says the adjacent lot has been vacant since 2014. He worked with the Edgewater Chamber of Commerce to commission the mural. He called it “a nice remedy” to the eyesore next door.
One of his favorite quotes is “the earth laughs in flowers” by poet Ralph Waldo Emerson, he says, and this mural exemplifies that. “I love it. I love the mural. I feel like it’s almost the essence of flowers, their aura or spirit.”
Despite sitting behind a fence, this mural, Zakrajsek says, receives more attention than any she has painted.
“People will contact me through that mural,” she says. “I’ve had several students reach out to me and say, ‘I saw your mural. Do you need any assistance?’”
With that, Zakrajsek says, the mural has accomplished what she set out for it to do. “It’s a gravel dead space right there with a gate. The mural you see more than the dead space now. That’s my hope for a lot of the murals that I do — that they become a moment of joy instead of surrounding clutter in our minds.”
