Emmy Star Brown painted this mural on the side of District 1860, a development at the site of the former Purple Hotel at the corner of Touhy and Lincoln avenues in Lincolnwood.
Genevieve Bookwalter
Drive east on Touhy Avenue off the Edens Expressway, travel under the pedestrian bridge, and a bright, abstract 200-foot-long mural welcomes you to what was once an eyesore of a vacant lot and the former home of Lincolnwood’s infamous Purple Hotel.
The mural is done by Chicago’s Emmy Star Brown, who said it’s the biggest mural she’s painted so far. And she’s painted a lot of murals. She finished this one in December 2022.
“We wanted to create a bright spot for the community that felt joyful and reflective,” Brown says.
“I wanted to create a really inspiring, impactful piece that served as a visual landmark, a statement piece, something you can see from the bike path above as well as from Touhy driving by,” she says. The mural rises with the pedestrian bridge to 36 feet tall at its highest point.
“It’s a piece that encourages you to pause and take a moment … to reflect on and hopefully connect with a piece of your younger self.”
The mural is part of a rebirth on the plot at the northwest corner of Touhy and Lincoln avenues — or an “exorcism,” as Sun-Times reporter David Roeder described it.
When it closed in 2007 and was torn down in 2013, the Purple Hotel had a reputation for drug-fueled parties and was remembered as the site of a mob hit back when it was a Hyatt. The desolate property sat vacant, strewn with debris, until construction on the mixed-use project known as District 1860 began in 2021. Now, apartments are up for lease and restaurants are seating tables. When completed, the 8.7-acre project from Tucker Development will include residential units, retail and restaurant space and an Amazon Fresh anchor store.
Inspiring connection with one’s inner child is a common theme not just in the Lincolnwood mural, but in much of Brown’s recent work. It grew as she taught calligraphy classes in the mid-2010s, and realized that she wanted her students to “find their creative, imaginative, playful selves again.” This realization also led to her to begin painting murals.
“What if I had the opportunity to do a large-scale mural in my calligraphy writing style, writing a positive quote?” she wondered. “Something that could really inspire someone or change the course of their day.”
She convinced a gallery in Logan Square to let her paint her mural on the wall for one month. She painted in white script on a black wall: “in a world where you can be anything, be kind.”
The mural went viral. Couples traveled to take their wedding photos in front of it. Members of the Red Hot Chili Peppers saw it and asked her to paint her second mural for their shows.
Now, Brown said she’s painted dozens of murals, with about 13 of them in Fulton Market alone. Her murals and artwork can be found on both interior and exterior walls of coffee shops, restaurants and retail stores all over Chicago, as well as in private collections. She painted a ceiling mural for a private condo building and licensed her art to a hotel for key cards and other features. She has partnered with brands like Field Notes and Yeti, where her patterns grace their book covers and tumbler walls.
Earlier in her career, Brown worked primarily in black and white and painted solid glass windows that she found in Chicago dumpsters. Her career exploded after she signed a year-long contract with Sharpie, which ran a documentary-style commercial of her on MTV, featured her on a billboard in Times Square, and showed her in ads in major magazines.
“That changed my life,” she says.
Brown grew up in Glen Ellyn and attended college at Illinois Institute for the Arts. Now, she works out of Kimball Arts Center in Logan Square, where she painted a mural on an outside wall. She’s traveling the world to paint commissioned murals, and returned most recently from painting in the British Virgin Islands. She has other murals underway that she can’t talk about yet.
Looking ahead, Brown says she hopes to continue with a balance between the murals she loves, her licensed work and her studio practice. An exhibition of her work, titled “Familiar Form,” opened May 3 at Vertical Gallery in Ukranian Village. The exhibit runs to May 25.
“It was a packed house the whole night,” Brown says of the opening. Family members, collectors who follow the gallery, fans who follow her on Instagram and friends from high school, college and beyond all showed up.
For a woman who grew up and built her career in and around Chicago, “It feels like all my worlds colliding in one place.”