Chicago murals: Matrix-like mural is first North Side commission for these South Side painters

The CMK graffiti crew, longtime friends once known for illegal tagging on the South Side, hope their first North Side commission in West Town will bring more opportunities to share their art with Chicagoans north of the Loop.

Work is almost done on a new mural that wraps around the building housing Bridgewater Studio on the corner of North Ashland Avenue and West Haddon Avenue in West Town. The artwork is visible to drivers on busy Ashland Avenue, as well as the regular foot traffic going in and out of Dusty Groove Records across the street.

Trippy old televisions, a spacey octopus and a praying-mantis-like creature shooting a laser beam are just a few of the detailed elements on the one-story brick wall. The theme was loosely inspired by the movie The Matrix, said Rick Castro of Garfield Ridge, whose graffiti name is Gnome174.

“I’ve been wanting to paint old-fashioned TVs with glitchy stuff on the screen,” Castro says. “It basically snowballed from there.”

Or, as fellow artist Luis “Peas” Molina puts it, “It became this alien, Matrix, TV-looking retro feel.”

The job came after the CMK crew recently finished a mural on a Bridgewater Studio building in Back of the Yards. The owner was pleased and asked the group to paint a mural on the company’s North Side building, which kept getting vandalized, the painters said.

This month, nearly 20 artists brought their sweeping jagged letters, surrealist shapes and comic-book inspired characters to a busy stretch of Ashland Avenue.

CMK, which stands for Chicago’s Most Known, has been a presence on the Chicago mural and graffiti scene since the 1990s, crew members say, when their work was primarily illegal. Its members still call each other best friends.

“A lot of us have been friends since the ‘90s,” Castro says. “With Chicago and graffiti in general, there was that bad element that nobody likes. As you grow up you’re like, ‘I can’t keep doing the same nonsense. I actually can draw.”

The CMK painters have worked together for decades, which makes their collaborations easy and flowing. Recent work includes a Back of the Yards stretch of murals turning 49th Street into a retro video game in 2022, and a series of murals along Pilsen’s 14th Street featuring famous and infamous Chicago locals.

“We’ve pretty much stayed to the South Side because there tends to be more industrial areas where the walls are bigger and you can plan out more extravagant ideas,” says Castro, who grew up in Pilsen. Much of the crew’s work can be found around Pilsen, Little Village and Back of the Yards, he says. The CMK initials are easily spotted on the Damen Silos.

With the crew’s newest mural, “this is a big thing for us, to contribute something on the North Side,” Molina says.

The crew received a lot of positive feedback and spoke with many shoppers going in and out of Dusty Groove as the dozen or so artists painted, Molina says. He hopes the conversations lead to more commissions with a new audience getting to know CMK’s work.

“With this recent installation, I'd like to see if there’s anyone who wants to work with us on the North Side, in Lincoln Park or Wicker Park,” Molina says. “Go a little farther than what we’re used to.”