CRE8IV / Rockford, Illinois / 2019
ROCKFORD
ILLINOIS
Corey Barksdale was one of the lead artists brought to Rockford, Illinois for CRE8IV, the city's transformational art initiative. His wall on East State Street runs the length of a downtown parking lot — musicians, dancers, and a skyline, painted freehand in enamel spray paint and acrylic.
The wall
A block of music on East State Street
The mural covers the long south-facing back wall of 114 N. First Street, facing the parking lot at 324 E. State Street across from Capri Restaurant — which is the address most people use to find it. The organizers primed the whole wall black before Corey arrived. Figures move across it left to right — a guitarist in a wide brim hat, dancers caught mid-step, a woman in a hat at the center — and then the wall opens into a full city skyline riding on bands of wave-like color. That black ground is what makes the reds and greens carry all the way across the lot.
Full Wall / Daylight
The Source Painting
East State Street / Evening
Rockford's transformational art initiative.
CRE8IV was a public art program run by the Rockford Area Convention & Visitors Bureau, with support from the Rockford Area Arts Council and a grant from the Illinois Office of Tourism. In the 2019 edition, eight lead artists and their teams painted nine large-scale murals across downtown Rockford, capped by a festival in May. The program went on to put more than fifty murals on walls, bridges, and columns across Rockford, Loves Park, Roscoe, Rockton, and Pecatonica before it was retired.
Freehand, no projector, no grid.
Corey worked the wall from a lift with enamel spray paint and acrylic, drawn by hand rather than traced from a projection. As he told Northwest Quarterly: “I don’t use a projector. I want people to see the gestures of my strokes and the movement in my artwork.” It is why the figures read as movement rather than outline, and why no two dancers on the wall are built the same way.
Harlem Renaissance, carried forward.
The wall grew out of an earlier painting. “It has a vintage feel to it,” Corey said of the design, “a throwback to art created during the Harlem Renaissance in the 1930s. The colors are also important to me, and represent a connection to my African-American heritage.” It is the same vocabulary running through his African American art and his live event painting, scaled up to the side of a building.
About the project
An out-of-state invitation
Rockford brought Corey up from Atlanta as one of CRE8IV's lead artists, alongside painters working in very different styles — part of the point of the program was putting those approaches on neighboring walls. The mural was sponsored by David Anderson and Bobbie Holzwarth, the State of Illinois, and Painters District Council No. 30.
The design went to the City of Rockford for approval days before he drove up. During the festival week the lot became a gathering place — a Family Fest night ran right in front of the wall while the paint was still going up, so people watched the mural arrive rather than just finding it finished. Corey later described the reception as “Southern hospitality for a Southerner in a Northern city.”
Helpful project answers
Frequently asked questions
Where is Corey Barksdale's Rockford mural?
On the south-facing back wall of 114 N. First Street in downtown Rockford, Illinois, facing the parking lot at 324 E. State Street across from Capri Restaurant.
What is CRE8IV?
CRE8IV was a public art initiative run by the Rockford Area Convention & Visitors Bureau that brought large-scale murals to Rockford and the surrounding region. Corey Barksdale painted his wall during the 2019 edition, when eight lead artists and their teams created nine murals across downtown Rockford, celebrated with a festival in May 2019.
What does the Rockford mural depict?
Musicians, dancers, and figures in motion against a city skyline, painted in vivid color on a black ground. The imagery draws on the Harlem Renaissance aesthetic of the 1930s and on African American musical heritage.
How was the mural painted?
Freehand from a lift, with enamel spray paint and acrylic on a wall primed black, without a projector or a grid. Corey Barksdale works this way so the gesture of each stroke stays visible in the finished wall.
Festivals & public art
Bringing a muralist to your city?
Corey travels for mural festivals, downtown revitalization programs, and civic commissions — from Atlanta to Rockford and beyond.