Hidden Art
If you’re regularly out and about in Hyde Park, you know there is hidden art all over – in the murals under the train tracks, in the tile mosaics displayed in front yards, on the walls of school buildings.
These days, as you walk around, you may also see artworks contributed by painter Courtney Jolliff. And if you happen to walk away with the art, that won’t disappoint Courtney.
It all started with a piece Courtney didn’t mean to have stolen. He had produced a mural of his Uncle Courtney and Grandma Chicago on King Drive near 38th Street. The image of Grandma Chicago was based on a photograph of her with Mayor Richard Daley, while the painting of Uncle Courtney was done in the style of a GQ Magazine cover. Hers was on posterboard, his was on plywood.
“I had got some records from the Hyde Park record store and did a really nice wall,” Courtney remembers. “And luckily my mom and brother was able to see it before someone stole it.”
While he was at first disappointed, Courtney Jolliff’s mentor Robert Welch told him about Banksy, the famous artist who produces public art that is sometimes stolen.
“I didn’t know who Banksy was,” Courtney says, “but once I heard that story, it kind of inspired me to do more hidden art around the city.”
Courtney recently took time to cheer up a local school playground with art dedicated to the children who play there. The playground is in disrepair and so contains plywood panels.
“It’s for the kids to enjoy,” he says, “to see something nice while they’re playing around.” He hopes the work will excite and inspire them.
“Every month I try to give back to the community in some way even if it’s silently,” Courtney explains. “Whether it’s donating clothes that I’ve designed to the people who are homeless that are here in Chicago, or sometimes I have extra food and so I sometimes take places food. Or sometimes I just take a couple of trash bags out and go out and clean the lake. It just depends on the mood that I’m in for the month, but I do something every month to give back to the planet or the community.”
Recently, Courtney decided to combine his artistic endeavors with his habit of giving back.
“This past month, I just chose to kind of hide and give out free art. But you have to find it,” he says, with a chuckle, hoping it is something of a game to be played among community members. “That’s what inspired the recent signs.”
The street-sign art speaks to people’s sense of place and community in this area, and plays on the tradition of the sentimental stealing of street signs.
“And I think it’s fun,” Courtney says, “and it’s funny that the pieces that I hid are on found objects so it makes it found art now. It’s just my way of kind of giving back…. Hyde Park is always so supportive of me and the artwork that I express and share with Hyde Park. I just wanted to do something quirky and funny and silently this month for any secret Hyde Park lovers or art lovers that may see their favorite street name or may just see the street sign and know me as that friendly face.”
“I’ve snuck some really beautiful pieces of my Uncle Courtney near the DuSable Museum,” Courtney notes. “He was the creative director of advertising and graphic design there, and so I did some pieces on their wall. I haven’t been by there in a while so I’m not sure if they’re still there.”
Courtney Jolliff says he has now realized that the movement of art through a community is a work of art itself. Found objects become found art, and found art connects us together in a city that just keeps moving.