WICKER PARK — June's Busy Bee mural paying homage to a long closed diner was replaced by a fresh work displaying gold handguns that strives to make a statement on Chicago’s current gun violence, according to The Violet Hour.
Artist and architect Christophe Gausparro began to work on the new mural along the 35-foot long exterior wall of the cocktail lounge at 1520 N. Damen Ave. this past weekend.
He said on Thursday that it should be completed by Sunday.
Gausparro named the mural, "What may blossom when the guns are buried."
Toy guns salvaged from thrift stores were disassembled and spray painted gold. The guns are featured amid a landscape of bright shapes and lines. The overall style of the work belongs to a new art genre called Graffuturism that merges street art with other forms of art.
Gausparro said that his thrift shop gun buys were somewhat of "an unofficial gun buy back program," and that by buying the toy guns, less children will be able to get a hold of them and won't use the toy weapons as play objects.
When asked if the red shapes above the guns represent blood splatters, Gausparro said that the mural's red parts are "Seussian" trees, a reference to famed author Dr. Suess.
The mural's antique wood spindles "show man-manipulated domestic objects returning to nature transforming into the tree trunks," Gausparro later wrote in an email.
The Violet Hour, which opened in 2007 and traces its name to a T.S. Eliot poem, camouflages its facade and entry door with artwork every six to eight weeks.
Prior to Gausparro's mural, the most recent Violet Hour wall that dealt with Chicago violence was "Killing Season: Chicago 2010," a visual documentation of sites of Chicago murders by artist Krista Wortendyke.
Gausparro at work. [DNAinfo/Alisa Hauser]
Images from "What may blossom when the guns are buried." [christophe-gausparro.squarespace.com]
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