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West Chicago artist’s murals lend downtown a dash of vibrant color

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A local artist has enlivened West Chicago’s historic downtown with splashes of color.

As part of a project coordinated by the city, Giovanni Arellano created a series of seven murals featuring vividly rendered nature scenes that started going up in the downtown area on Nov. 30.

“I have a lot of love for my community, so I want to contribute in whatever way that I can with my artwork,” said Arellano, 27, a 2015 graduate of West Chicago Community High School.

The vibrant 8-foot-by-12-foot murals are printed on vinyl banners framed by black, powder-coated aluminum.

They feature flora and fauna and focus on the theme of the Illinois Prairie Path, which winds just south of the buildings where the murals are installed.

A playful Prairie Path scene unfolds on 225 Main St., a building owned by AT&T, thanks to an agreement with that company.

Arellano designed two pieces for the original Gallery 200 location at 200 Main St. One has a monarch butterfly and an Athanasia plant, and the other has a hummingbird and bee balm.

At 132 Main St., the West Chicago City Museum in the former 1884 Turner Town Hall building, a cardinal and sunflower can be seen high above the ground.

At the current Gallery 200 location, 103 W. Washington St., there are three street-level murals: the invasive feral cat and wild parsnip, the endangered rusty patched bumblebee and leafy prairie clover, and a dragonfly paired with coneflower.

Daniel Peck, West Chicago’s manager of marketing and communications, coordinated the mural project.

Peck applied for a DuPage Foundation JCS Arts, Health & Education Fund grant of $14,900, a 50% matching grant with the city providing the other half for a total cost of $29,800 covering materials, installation, and the artist’s fee.

After West Chicago’s Cultural Arts Commission recommended moving forward with the artwork, the city council approved the project on Oct. 21.

Peck said a condition for the grant was that the project had to impact the entire DuPage County. The Illinois Prairie Path, running right through West Chicago, does that.

Arellano — who has created pieces for the DuPage Children’s Museum in Naperville, the DuPage Hispanic Alliance, Northern Illinois University’s DREAM Action NIU, the Illinois Legislative Latino Caucus Foundation, and West Chicago’s 2022 “Year of the Alebrijes” — was on board.

“I’m a nature guy. For me to do something like this, it’s really cool,” said Arellano, who creates under the signature, Fiendsco.

“I don’t want to say it’s a perspective of how I view nature, but it’s definitely a dedication to nature. Hopefully, we inspire people to preserve our creatures, our animals,” he said.

Arellano said he dedicated about nine months to the project. For the AT&T mural alone, from preliminary sketches to finishing the piece using computer graphics, he put in about 100 hours.

The murals have drawn a key endorsement.

“It really wakes up the downtown. It adds a little spark to it. They’re beautiful,” West Chicago Mayor Ruben Pineda said.

“We’re very fortunate in West Chicago that we have artists who are willing to do this and bring this to the downtown,” Pineda said.

Peck intends for the murals to be a rotating program with fresh artwork every few years.

“It’s definitely a new visual for what our downtown can be, and is,” Peck said.