Client: Rockford Visitors Bureau

Overview

This mural, a painterly and gestural landscape, located in Roscoe, Illinois, outside of Rockford, northwest of Chicago, was completed for the CRE8IV mural festival. The image features an aerial view of the Pecatonica River as it flows towards the Rock River – interactions of the midwestern grid, the agricultural landscape, with the wildness of the river, capture the landscape, character, and history of the area – agriculture and industry, sewn together by the watershed.

Goals

Project organizers were interested in commissioning a mural that would depart from the more commercial looking murals in their community and capture a sense of place without feeling like a one-liner or nostalgia based. An aerial view of the surrounding area was chosen, and executed in a painterly manner, with a final piece intended to be as much about painting itself as it is about other more direct themes.

Process

Working with the stakeholders in Roscoe, as well as the managers of the Rockford mural project, a design concept was chosen, calibrated in its complexity and ambition to meet the demands of the budget, and executed over the course of a week. The mural is painted with professional quality, lightfast acrylic paint, for a long lasting and durable mural.