It’s not every day you see an artist dangling 75 feet in the air, calmly brushing a giant concrete wall like he’s painting a picket fence. But that’s exactly where you’ll find Guido van Helten – perched high above the ground in a boom lift, steadily working on what will become one of the most striking landmarks in Minot, North Dakota.
“When you use these old structures to kinda share stories and use them as a vehicle to carry an image of identity, it becomes part of the landscape,” he said.
Van Helten, 38, hails from Brisbane, Australia, but he’s made a name for himself across the globe by transforming massive industrial buildings into breathtaking murals.
From dams in Australia to a cooling tower near Chernobyl, his work blends realism and community storytelling on an epic scale.
And for the last several years, he’s been especially drawn to the vast, often overlooked spaces of the American Midwest – what some might call “flyover” country.
“I do enjoy the opportunity to uncover stories that are often kinda considered out of the way or flyover communities,” he said.
His latest canvas? A hulking 1950s grain elevator and silo complex in the middle of Minot – once a booming hub of agricultural trade, now a dormant fixture of the skyline. The plan: to wrap the structure in a 360-degree mural that captures the essence of the region through a mix of photography and painting.
Van Helten’s approach is slow and deliberate. He spends time with locals first, listening to stories and soaking up the character of a place before ever picking up a brush. He began painting in Minot in May, and while the final imagery remains under wraps, glimpses of barns and female figures have already emerged on the concrete towers.
“It is really when you boil down to it in many ways about land and how different cultures interpret that and connect with it,” he said of the inspiration behind the piece. “And I feel it’s really interesting in North Dakota because it is really such a big, open land.”
That connection to land – whether through ranching, the oil field, or Native American heritage – is something van Helten says has shaped the mural’s concept. Minot itself lies close to the Bakken oil field and Fort Berthold Indian Reservation, where questions of land and ownership are ever-present.
He’s also very intentional about the look and feel of his work, using mineral silicate paints that bond to the concrete and age naturally with the wall’s own texture.
“I love the colouring of these buildings, so I don’t want to fight with them, I don’t want to change it, I don’t want it to be bright,” he explained. “I want it to become part of the landscape.”
And it’s not just the artist who sees the value.
“It’s a great way to take what is kind of a blighted property and be able to give it a facelift and kind of resurrect its presence in our skyline,” said property owner Derek Hackett. He adds that soon the mural will be visible from almost anywhere in town.
The project isn’t cheap – the total cost is around $350,000 (€301,000) – but it’s entirely donation-funded. So far, about 85% has been raised, said Chelsea Gleich, a spokesperson for the mural project.
“It is uniquely ours, it’s uniquely North Dakota and you’ll never be able to find a piece just like this anywhere else,” she said.
