From alley to gallery: Red Line viaduct in Edgewater is awash with murals

This unfinished mural featuring Chicago skyscrapers and the L by artists Teel and Diem pays tribute to graffiti, hip-hop and their Chicago heritage. The shark, representing Teel, wears a Cubs hat, and the crocodile is Diem. | Rylee Tan / Sun-Times

Five blocks of alleys in Edgewater used to be just that — garbage cans, parked cars, all the usual dreariness that says “Chicago alley.”

No longer. Now, the stretch that’s bordered on one side by a CTA Red Line L viaduct is a full-blown artistic showcase, the scene of more than 100 murals by over 30 artists.

Many of the murals stand on their own. But look closely, and there’s a theme that links some of the art that might be described as “tearing down walls and building bridges,” says Max Villarreal, 38, who has helped attract artists to the space.

Most of the paintings are graffiti-style street art with hip-hop influences, reflecting that the North Side neighborhood “has a very rich history of graffiti art most people don’t know about,” Villarreal says.

Artist Max Villarreal says his aim with this piece, depicting a diverse group crossing a bridge, was to show a connection to the surrounding community. Though he has helped bring in artists to do the murals in a five-block stretch of Edgewater alleys, this is one of a few murals he did himself.

Starting from the north end of the span of alleyways, near West Sheridan Road, people will pass some finished and some unfinished examples of what artist Lavie Raven calls “wildstyle” graffiti art before coming to a massive, two-panel, 15-by-60-foot mural in red, purple and green painted by Raven.

Using his phone’s translator app and his imagination, Lavie Raven turned this stretch of alley wall in Edgewater into a multicultural celebration. The mural includes the word “bridge” in nine languages and the words “Ahimsa” (nonviolence and a respect for all living things) and “Namaste” (a respectful greeting) in graffiti-inspired lettering.

The word ahimsa — Sanskrit for nonviolence — is written on the left panel. It’s flanked to the right with namaste — a traditional Hindu greeting used throughout South Asia. In the center: the earth and a rising sun.

Artist Lavie Raven says he was inspired to use the Maori language in his mural after spending a few months in New Zealand as an educator.

The mural also features the word bridge in nine languages — Sanskrit, Yoruba, Arabic, Korean, Spanish, Hebrew, Kannada, Maori and Mandarin. The contrasting lettering styles were meant to send “something calming and meditative” while celebrating the cultures represented by each of the languages, says Raven, 50.

Raven prefers to use the term “writer” rather than graffiti artist. He says he has been involved with the art scene in Chicago for 37 years and was recruited for the Edgewater project by his former work partner Eric Villarreal, who’s Max Villarreal’s brother.

This mural featuring a towering tree was done, leaf by leaf, by Max Villarreal.

The brothers have been organizing artists to fill the space in Edgewater with their work since last May and say they’re aiming to finish later this year. They added their own mark to the alleys as well as recruiting others.

This “respect the alley” mural by Max Villarreal was meant to send a message: Take care of the neighborhood.

Eric Villarreal has at least one panel in each block of the alley gallery. They range from a two-panel cityscape to a piece celebrating the history of the North Side, featuring an old locomotive and an historic Uptown bank.

Eric Villarreal shows some of the North Side’s history in this mural featuring an old-style locomotive and Uptown’s historic Bridgeview Bank.

Next to Raven’s multilingual mural, you’ll see a piece that features a shocked hunter taking aim at a ferocious lion, with the words “Speak Out” below — a piece Max Villarreal and Jimmy James added to highlight the project’s social justice theme.

In this mural by Max Villarreal and Jimmy James, an open-mouthed lion threatens a hunter, a piece the artist says was meant to encourage people to “speak out” against social injustice.

“I see things that are unfair and other injustices, and it inspires me to paint,” Max Villarreal says. “It’s a way for us to express ideas we thought were relevant and we thought the community would like.”

As you walk toward West Rosemont Avenue, neon colors seem to leap out from the wall, like the cheetah in artist Travis Talsma’s piece titled “Luck Favors the Bold.”

A cheetah leaps out to pounce in a mural by Travis Talsma titled “Luck Favors the Bold.”

Talsma — who, for his art, goes by the name T.R.A.V.I.S.T.Y., and is 29 — used cracks in the wall to highlight the notion of breaking through walls. He also incorporated tattoo and graffiti influences.

Looking north in the alley towards West Sheridan Road, a mural by Eric Villarreal, among other artists, shows a dark cityscape background and stylized lettering.

The largest piece — taking up three and a half panels — says simply “Edgewater.”

The three artists who worked on it go by Teel, C3PO and Diem. They say they painted it to show they’ve come “full circle,” the neighborhood having played an important role for each in their early days as artists. They got their start 30 years ago in Edgewater. They’ve since opened Momentum Art Tech, 958 S. Oak Park Ave., an Oak Park graffiti art supply store. And their work can be seen across the city, Teel says.

The artist known as Diem works on the “Edgewater” mural near Winthrop and Glenlake avenues.

One of the aims of the alley mural project was to try to capture a sense of the spirit of the community.

A piece by David Orozco, 38, does that by including one of its residents, Gabriel Wallace, who has lived in Edgewater for two years. Wallace would watch the “creative juggernauts” paint his alley and ended up being a part of Orozco’s cityscape mural — a blue-and-orange figure who’s seen riding his bike amid a sea of cars battling downtown traffic.

David Orozco says he painted this cityscape so people can “remember what we Chicagoans felt at one time” before the coronavirus pandemic.

Orozco says he painted the cityscape to remind people of Chicago’s pre-pandemic bustle and to help preserve the beauty of the city he has a “love-hate relationship with.”

Gabriel Wallace, 33, says it was an “honor” to be painted into David Orozco’s mural, which shows him, in a blue shirt, riding his bike.

Orozco says new development and gentrification are eating away at some of the city’s character — which he’s aiming to capture in his work “before it’s all gone.”

This mural near West Ardmore Avenue portrays a heroic medical professional. It was done by the artist who goes by @riko_arte on Instagram.

This mural by the Made You Look Group is a call to action, with the words “Motivate,” “Unite” and “Liberate” above wildly stylized lettering. There’s a bridge visible in the background, and a blue comic book-like figure stands to the right.

Click on the map below for a selection of Chicago-area murals