In Ukrainian Village, Sean Archer’s ‘Flower Power’ mural fueled by ‘a desire to fight despair’

“After some sketching and talking, he decided that he really wanted something that was mostly Ukrainian,” says Archer, whose wife is Ukrainian and moved to the United States in 1998 with her family.

“We decided on flowers as the main symbols,” the Chicago artist says. “Sunflowers, poppies, marigolds and viburnum are all considered strong symbols in Ukraine. So he wanted all of them somewhere in the design.”

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Archer, 45, who lives in Ukrainian Village, decided to paint “a young woman in Ukrainian folk dress, bringing forth a portal that transports the viewer to a field in the mountains of Ukraine, a field full of flowers. I love the idea of bringing nature into an urban setting, and this seemed a good way to do that. She also has a hidden Chicago symbol in her headdress. Four red poppies were my nod to the four red stars in the Chicago flag.

“The young woman in the mural is a symbol of strength and the power of creation,” Archer says. “She’s not modeled after any one person. I was mainly just trying to evoke a quiet sense of power and stern resolve. She’s not going to let anything stop her from creating something beautiful in this world. She’s going to fight against terror and pain with ‘Flower Power,’ which is the title of the mural.”

The mural, at 1859 W. Chicago Ave., spans 60 feet and was done in August amid the ongoing war in Ukraine, which Russia invaded in February.

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Archer says his wife and her relatives in the United States “do have family and friends still in many parts of Ukraine. They are deeply impacted. While that definitely connects me deeply, the story, to me, is our connectedness as humans. I hear stories about atrocities, and I am impacted. I think we are all impacted. And I think I would feel that pain urgently just being aware of the world right now irrespective of my wife.

“I think it couldn’t help but be a statement on the state of the world, including the war. But it’s more a desire to fight despair and all the pain that we’ve seen in the last few years and to do so with an act of creation.”

The painting came about because of another Ukrainian-themed mural Archer painted earlier this year outside Rich’s Deli, 857 N. Western Ave. It includes the blue and yellow of the Ukrainian flag and the words, “Rich’s Deli Stands with the People of Ukraine.”

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It includes an image of a boy in mid-air, having jumped and now about to land on and presumably crush a little tank. Nearby is a dove in mid-air.

That mural “was conceived when the war first began,” Archer says. “The concept was that of children playing in the war-torn streets and pulling down the wall of a bombed-out building to reveal the heart of the country in a blue sky and golden field of wheat.”

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Archer, who also is a jazz musician, says the response he got from that first mural from people in the neighborhood, which has a significant Ukrainian identity, “was really strong.”

“I had people coming and bringing me coffee and chocolate as I painted and elderly Ukrainian men thanking me with tears in their eyes,” he says. “You could just tell it really meant a lot to folks.”

“Once it was done, I had a number of people ask about hiring me,” with Dr. Danylo Butenko, who runs the veterinary clinic, among them.

Butenko says: “We wanted to add a symbol of hope. That Ukrainians are a very culturally rich community, a very beautiful community, and we wanted to show that in artwork.”

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