Chicago murals: South Shore design reflects student artists’ vision

On a residential street just south of Jackson Park, a community center’s new mural unfurls across what was a bright white wall tucked among South Shore’s three-story brick apartment buildings.

In front of a sky-blue background, purple silhouettes and portrait line drawings show men and women gazing through a camera, typing on a computer and holding a book. Leaves with green, orange and yellow chevron patterns stretch toward each other under the phrase “Love & Unity in the Community.”

Artist Erick “ROHO” Garcia of Joliet worked with about 10 students in the Chicago nonprofit After School Matters program to design and create the mural, which wraps around the building and above its glass tile entryway. After School Matters helps teens learn new skills from community leaders and earn money doing it.

“The beauty is, the teens get involved from the get-go … from the blank canvas,” says Garcia, who worked with the students over a few weeks this summer.

They “get to see their ideas morph into the final design and finally get put up on the wall,” he says.

Garcia has taught a handful of mural classes through After School Matters, and “each time it’s wonderful to see their eyes” when the mural is complete, he says.

The building that houses the new mural is the South Shore Community Center, part of The Park Affordable Housing Community.

Almost 450 apartments there have been renovated and leased as affordable housing, which is especially important as rents and property values continue to rise and the Obama Presidential Library prepares to open nearby, says Sarah Wick, senior vice president of affordable housing with development company Related Midwest.

The community center’s central location makes it a social hub and gathering spot for after-school activities, fitness classes, arts and crafts programs and workshops on finance, technology and resume writing, Wick says.

Multiple students in the class that created the mural live in the community.

Related Midwest has commissioned Garcia and After School Matters for a few different murals. “He’s really good with the kids, taking their ideas and really making it about their work and not his work,” Wick says.

Garcia says he and the students painted the mural on a canvas-like material in the After School Matters building on the South Side. Then he stuck the mural to the building with a gel-like glue, similar to wheatpaste, applying an anti-graffiti coating to protect the work and make it easier to clean.

The figures in the mural, Garcia says, represent the people who live in the community and what they might do at the community center.

“Over the door is a couple with a child to signify family,” he says. “Then at the end is a gentleman with a microphone to emphasize spoken word and speaking your truth.”