So imagine that one morning you tell your spouse you’re quitting your job to become an artist. That’s basically what Tony Passero — who has created some of Chicago’s most recognizable murals — did.
The Chicago native worked in advertising for more than 20 years before deciding to follow his dream to be a painter. Now, he has created more than a dozen murals across the city.
Passero, 53, says that, with no formal education in art, he began doodling and sketching seven years ago to cope with a health scare.
“I started thinking about legacy and what I wanted people to remember me about,” Passero says. “I think if my kids were, like, ‘Hey, my dad tried to create things and make the world a better place through art’ — not that I do that, but I try — that was a better legacy to me. And I think I just threw myself at it.”
Passero — who says he’s now in good health — graduated from notebook sketches to canvases and eventually to the viaduct walls where most of his murals can be found, beneath L tracks, Lake Shore Drive and the Kennedy Expressway.
“I’d walk my kids to school, and we’d go under a viaduct, and it would be filled with pigeon poop and garbage and all that stuff,” he says. “And I’m, like, ‘Why isn’t a mural done here?’
“I started reading and researching and basically went to an alderman, saying, ‘Hey, can I put a mural here?’ ”
That’s how Passero’s first mural — “Hep Cat Mural,” a Kennedy Expressway viaduct at 4820 N. Cicero Ave. — came to be in 2013.
It features a giant, Cheshire-smiling cat with piano keys for teeth and takes up most of the viaduct wall with funky colors and hand-drawn patterns.
The title is a nod to what a talented jazz performer would be called in the 1940s and 1950s.
“A lot of cars back up and stay underneath this viaduct, so, as you look to your right, you’re looking at this awful, ugly wall,” Passero says. “I largely thought: What could be something fun that would amuse people as they’re sitting in their cars?”
For most of his murals, Passero says he leans toward playful themes. So he paints a lot of animals.
One of his favorites is “CoyWolf Mural,” featuring back-to-back images of two coyote-wolf hybrids at 1800 N. Damen Ave. — at one of the entrances to The 606 Trail. Passero says he used to live nearby and would see an animal on the railroad tracks that he couldn’t make out whether it was a coyote or a wolf.
Another of his murals — fittingly called “Under LSD Mural” — can be seen underneath Lake Shore Drive at the entrance to Montrose beach, with six colorful fish he describes as “Caribbean-influenced” along the length of the wall.
Passero says he wondered: “How can you convert what is dark and dank, where people walk through or drive through all the time, into something that’s more of a gateway destination into Montrose Harbor?” Then, he contacted the alderman about doing the mural.
Passero’s most recent mural is titled “Tierra Mural,” done last year along the North Branch River Trail in LaBagh Woods, 5275 N. Cicero Ave. It features nature-themed images, including suns with faces, a snake, a turtle, a bird and a big tree.
“He’s got such a creative mind,” says Jesus Crespo, who worked with Passero on the mural. “Artwork seems like natural extension of himself.”
Dan Pogorzelski, a friend of Passero who’s worked on several murals with him, calls Passero’s art a “spiritual practice.” And he says Passero’s ability to move so easily to painting for a living shows that “Chicago is a city that cares more about what you can do than what your credentials are.”