Before I married a Wisconsinite and started visiting Wisconsin several times per year, America’s Dairyland wasn’t a place I readily associated with avant-garde street art. But I’ve since been happy to discover that a number of Wisconsin’s cities have historical murals and colorful, thoughtful graffiti art displayed on the sides of buildings or tucked away in hidden alleys.
I’ve come to appreciate the public art in cities like Madison, Wisconsin, mostly because stumbling upon a graffiti-covered wall in the Midwest can feel so delightfully unexpected. Though Madison has the Madison Mural Alley, which was inspired by San Francisco’s Mission District murals and features a handful of spray-painted urban gems clustered next to one another, many of Madison’s most charming murals appear in some of the most random places, like on the sides of liquor stores or vending machines — or in the case of the Flamingo Swirls Mural, on the side of a laundromat.
Whether you’re purposefully setting off on a self-guided walking tour of Madison’s public art or you’re merely curious about the story behind some of the murals you’ve seen popping up around town, these are six stunning works of art that are best seen up close and in person.
Flamingo Swirls Mural
This enchanting mural was created by artists Liubóv Szwako (“Triangulador”) and Emily Balsley in a collaboration with OhYa Studio. While flamingos may seem out of place in the snowy Midwest, oddly enough, it is actually Madison’s official city bird…