Artist Mauricio Ramirez grew up in Berwyn, went to high school in Westchester, lives in Cicero and has produced murals you can find across the Chicago area, from the West Side to Woodstock’s quaint downtown.
But as much as Ramirez is a Chicago guy, he also has family ties to Milwaukee. That’s where he created what might be that city’s most popular mural: a towering image of Milwaukee Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo.
Displayed on the side of a downtown Milwaukee building, it shows Antetokounmpo from the back, in his green jersey, hands on hips.
“The amount of traction that thing gets, it’s insane,” Ramirez says of the work he painted last year.
“It’s all aerosol, all painted with Montana spray paint. I really pushed it with that one.”
Ramirez says the mural essentially was the result of a collaboration that included him, the Bucks, the Milwaukee Downtown association and the owner of the building on Wisconsin Avenue: “They all kind of collaborated and myself, too, to create a cool image.”
“Someone gave me a photorealistic photo of Giannis,” he says. “From there, I translated a four-by-six photo to what the dimensions are.”
It stands more than 53 feet tall and is more than 56 feet across.
Ramirez says Antetokounmpo “actually sent me an Instagram message, said he’d like to meet me one day.”
So is Ramirez a Bucks fan — or a Bulls fan?
“I grew up being both actually,” he says.
Though he lived in the Chicago area, he says, “My mom’s side of the family is all from Milwaukee. I have three aunts and three uncles up there.” Cousins, too.
When he’d go there for family events, Ramirez says, “I was the Chicago relative.”
His work generally leans toward a geometric styling that distorts reality.
He’s done lots of work around Chicago, including a mural last year in Woodstock that’s part of the McHenry County community’s growing commitment to public art. He also has branched out, with works outside the area in Kansas City, Vermont, New Mexico and Oregon in addition to Milwaukee.
Ramirez says his art often involves “taking old images and reintroducing them into this poly-wave style . . . a lot more wavy and interesting to look at.”
That’s the style he used for a mural he painted in Pilsen in 2021 showing an Aztec warrior.
Ramirez says he also has been “dabbling in more photorealism, as you saw with Giannis.”
“I like to exercise a range of painting.”
Ramirez says that, growing up, he was into graffiti. After college, he worked at an airport, painting planes. He painted homes. He painted tanks and other military vehicles.
“I just wanted to be around paint,” he says. “I loved creating, I loved turning something boring into something interesting . . . and learn.”
