Nicky Andrews
Editorial Intern
He based the mural at 1451 W. 18th St. in Pilsen on a 2017 photo by Gustavo ‘Gus’ Mejia of a model dressed as an Aztec warrior.
Growing up in Rogers Park and Uptown amid violence, drugs and gangs, creating art “was an escape . . . a place where I could make the world I wanted.” He wants to provide that outlet for kids.
He’s a pharmacist as well as an artist and says, with both jobs, his aim is to help people heal. Like with his mural in Bucktown of a faceless adult and a boy moving forward through a field of flowers.
The varying images and styles are meant to convey that “women are very complex,” one of the artists says. “We have dark sides, light sides, colorful sides.”
Jorge Nambo-Palmeno, who came to the U.S. from Mexico at 9, wants people to see the basic square figures in his mural at 15th and Wood streets and think: ‘I can do that.’