Jeff Zimmermann, Commissioned by the Park District, Paints a Mural at Oak Street Beach

7/26/2011

WHO:
Jeff Zimmermann is currently painting a mural at the entrance to a pedestrian tunnel between Oak Street Beach and Michigan Avenue.
WHAT:
The public art piece is part of a larger public outreach campaign to raise awareness of beach health and water quality issues, and what the public can do to help; more specifically, by not feeding the birds or littering.
WHERE:
Oak Street Beach underpass, just east of the Lakefront Path
WHEN:
Now through Aug. 3 from 7am – 6pm (weather permitting)
*Do not interrupt the artist while he is working. For an interview, please call the contact listed above.
MORE:
The mural will be on display along a wall running parallel to the Lakefront Trail and is the access point to the underpass at Oak Street Beach, measuring about 260 foot long and 9 feet tall in the center. The project is being funded through a grant from the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative through the United States Environmental Protection Agency. Studies have shown that seagull fecal matter could be a contributing cause of swim bans. Feeding the birds and littering attracts the seagulls to the beach.
A native of Chicago, Jeff Zimmermann has achieved national and international recognition for his large scale murals featuring painted images of contemporary pop culture and sensitively rendered portraits. Zimmermann’s pop-culture references range from innocuous consumer products such as beer cans, hard candy rings, and high-heeled shoes, to more symbolically charged images like pistols and portraits of political figures. The images are discrete and floating, knitted together by geometric areas of flat color. The overall aesthetic is smooth and sensual: shiny metal and glossy surfaces, rendered in saturated colors. Zimmermann’s paintings have the sex appeal of commercial art, and any irony surrounding that connection is light and playful. The artist’s background as a graphic designer explains his shrewd use of flashy and graphic forms which also permeate the mass media (Zimmermann’s self-proclaimed competition), operating on the theory that we all deeply love flashy stuff.
To view the progress, click here.

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