In Cheri Lee Charlton’s mural in Lincoln Park, though, the speedy, little birds are frozen in time.
“I looked at capturing the wings in a still way as an opportunity to play with repetition and employ decoration in each feather,” says Charlton, who painted the mural last year on a building at 1538 N. Clybourn Ave.
She chose hummingbirds because the mural, which she titled “Hummingbird Dream,” is outside a Mexican restaurant at the NEWCITY shopping center, and the birds are seen as an omen of good fortune in Mexican culture.
“It was important for me to find cultural influence,” says Charlton, 41, who lives in Uptown.
She also liked that the hummingbirds could be seen as a “metaphor” for the “success” of the restaurant as it prepared to open.
The mural features contrasting blues and yellows bursting from the center, with the birds to either side.
She sees the art as an “immediate explosion of positivity and color and happiness.”
As with all her murals, the California-born, Ohio-raised artist says she wanted to “reward viewership” for people who stick around to take a closer look.
“The colors and the large flowers draw people in,” she says. Then, for those who take a longer look, “There’s all these lovely details that make themselves more visible.”
For the flowers, Charlton, who describes herself as “an illustrator who does murals,” says she was inspired by “traditional needlepoint work” on huipils — Mexican tunics.
Since the mural was going up outside a Mexican restaurant, she says she based the flowers on Mexican poppies, pink dahlias and roses.
