Visit Uptown, Evanston or Austin off the Eisenhower Expressway and you can’t miss three of Avalon Park muralist Max Sansing’s most prominent works of 2024.
The first was a massive mural on Michele Clark Academic Prep Magnet School in Austin, which can be seen from the Eisenhower Expressway.
The next was on the Davis Street Metra station in Evanston, where he added to a piece he finished there in 2022 at the newly named Civic Plaza.
After that he traveled to Uptown, where he painted a mural tribute to house music on the wall of the Chicago Public Library’s Uptown branch.
In between he traveled to Englewood, where he joined fellow artists in turning an old rail line support wall into a gallery showing their love for the neighborhood.
“Those murals happened in a marathon phase last year,” Sansing says. “The experience of painting the mural is the driving force of why I still do them, not necessarily the finished project. I like going out and painting and talking with people. It’s very therapeutic for me.”
In Evanston, Sansing expanded on a mural that he began in 2022, turning the ramp up to the Metra train station platform into “cake layers” of a multicolored, abstract, spray-painted mural.
He also included a portrait of Lorraine Morton, Evanston’s former mayor for whom the Lorraine H. Morton Civic Center was named.
“She went to Northwestern, I felt like she looked so young and full of promise, and she went on to do great things. I thought, ‘Oh, this is cool, the kids could see themselves as young and poised,’” Sansing says. “As for the abstract style, it was the first time people told me that the mural makes them feel good, as opposed to saying it looks nice because I painted a portrait well. It meant a lot to me.”
Lea Pinsky, executive director of Evanston’s nonprofit Art Encounter, said she was thrilled to bring Sansing back to expand upon his work. The mural “has transformed this part of downtown Evanston, an area that used to be just a pass-through, and which is now the heart of the newly named Civic Plaza.”
The library mural in Uptown, Sansing says, represents two distinct features of the neighborhood: its history of house music and its vibrant Asian community. Gherkin Records, which once distributed house music under its own label, was housed across the street.
“There was a long and lengthy design process, trying to figure out exactly how to incorporate both of those things,” Sansing says.
He worked with the community and ultimately settled on a design featuring flowers that are nationalistic to the neighboring immigrant communities, particularly calla lilies, hibiscus and lotus flowers. Around them he featured raised hands, DJs Frankie Knuckles and Andre Harris, and a record with the Gherkin label.
“If you take the piece and lay it flat on the ground, it looks like a DJ setup,” Sansing said.
Chantal Healey is executive director at Chicago Public Art Group, which commissioned the mural. To her, the finished piece “represents the dream-like state that all races and colors feel when they come together to listen to house music,” she says. “A community is stronger when people of all races and genders can collaborate and celebrate a common love together.”
Sansing says he set down the spray cans in October and doesn’t plan to pick one up again until spring, when he starts the next year’s work. The seasonal pattern is typical for him, he says. “I’m mostly in my studio working on my fine art, which is my main practice, mostly oil paintings,” he says. “The murals are like a side project that’s gotten out of control.”
“I do this every year.”
CORRECTION: This story has been updated to show the correct photo of the mural that Max Sansing painted at Michele Clark Academic Preparatory Magnet High School in Austin.
