Minimalism Vs Kenosha Murals

how murals have a positive impact on society

Minimalism is nothing new; people have seen several posts, furniture, clothes, and several spaces take on the aesthetic. It seems as though most buildings have adopted a simpler color palette and spatial layouts, rather than the more colorful, detailed ideas of the past. Some may like it, others don’t mind it, but some people wish that it were less common than it is now. Although minimalism seems like a new concept, it has always been around, just less noticeable. While the popularity of minimalism has increased over the period from early 2024 to 2026, the ideas and execution of minimalism have existed for longer. Kenosha is no stranger to some minimalism, but despite this, we have managed to maintain a certain level of creativity and go against this trend.

To get a sense of the difference between Kenosha’s many murals and artworks and the current trend toward minimalism, we need to understand what minimalism truly is. The idea behind minimalism is living in a way that removes what is deemed as excess clutter from a person's life and choosing function and simplicity over the physical aspects of an object. In history, it flourished in the late 1950s with many artists, such as Frank Stella, an abstract painter at the time, and saw a big boost in interest in the 1960s and 1970s. The neutral and often monochromatic color palettes, clean lines, and lack of small details are the most common aspects of the idea. Some places, such as the many McDonald's locations, have gone from the highly colorful layouts of the past and have converted to the ideals of minimalism over time.

Naturally, like most trends and aesthetics, there are setbacks to fully living and being surrounded by minimalist layouts. Stephan Joppich, a person who has chosen to live a minimalist lifestyle, stated that people can get attached to the few things that they choose to keep, they can hold themselves back from buying things that can help them grow, seeing others or places that aren’t minimalist can cause unease, and self-expression is often lost to the almost obsessive urge to clear out anything that doesn’t perform well under the ideals of minimalist life. Many people have expressed their thoughts on the shift from the colorful layouts of the past to the now “simplified” look of most buildings and businesses. Some are for the changes, while many oppose and even go as far as to say that they miss the previous aesthetics they took for granted. Any new buildings with a minimalist look to them have gotten a few judgments due to the growing popularity of it all.

This mural, painted on the side of a building called “The Space” shows the word Kenosha depicted in a more “minimalist” style.

Although minimalism seems to be growing, there has been an exception to this underlying rule: the city of Kenosha. The Kenosha area, more specifically downtown, has had a number of different artwork pieces and murals scattered throughout buildings and sidewalks. In a world where people are pushing for more functionality, downtown Kenosha has managed to maintain its own aesthetic, providing a sense of community all the while. While the funding for the projects themselves takes a bit of time to acquire, the murals have gained some traction over the years. On Aug 19, 2025, a mural project was set up to complete nine different murals to attract tourists to the area. “About three years ago they invited me from Lake Geneva; one of my friends was a previous executive director of downtown Kenosha, so she invited me to help her organize a mural project about three years ago,” Francisco Loyola, who was in charge of the mural project recalled. “So with that project I contacted the mayor at that time, and proposed that we do that right here; she gave us a little bit of money to get it started, and the city has been supporting the project for the last year,” he added. The project became an event, offering interactive art shops, music, and food from 1 pm to 8 pm.

The murals themselves aren’t just for bringing in tourists, according to the California Center for the Arts; murals and other forms of physical art in an area can attract business, add to the property value of a space, support small businesses and artists, and foster pride in a community. Francisco Loyola stated, “One of the local artists that came donated to the city, and the city suggested to come with is, so they painted the Kenosha mural on the side of a building as a gift to the city of Kenosha, and the mural in an alley there’s a poem that her partner wrote for her but it’s in Arabic; and those two murals are starting to clear more interest.”

This mural can be found near The Space on 57th Street. The mural uses a numerous variety of blue along with the depiction of butterflies surrounding it.

It’s more of a symbiotic relationship between artists and the spaces they live in. Locations can get a lot of benefits from murals and statement pieces, and artists can express their love for the places they grew up in or appreciate. Compared to minimalism, the downtown Kenosha area breathes life into the community and gives everyone the opportunity to be represented.

Of course, just like paintings themselves, murals can also be objective. Many people may see some forms of murals minimalistic such as the mural titled “The Kenosha Kraken” due to its monochromatic colors and seemingly unfinished look. “It’s designed to look like a final print in just black and white, it doesn’t have a lot of colors, but it has good details. So a lot of people were asking at the beginning ‘when are they going to paint it’, and I say no this is the way that it’s going to look” Loyola mentions.

“The Kenosha Kraken”, made by mural artist Leeana Chipana, has been used in many forms of merchandise such as sweaters, but has been thought to be unfinished due to the lack of color.The mural itself represents the vibrancy of the Kenosha community.

In those same ways, many can argue that some of the murals are minimalistic because they lack details, lineart, or as the kraken mural shows, color. However, the artwork can still connect with people unlike the modern ideals of minimalism that companies have plastered onto the interiors and exteriors of their businesses. That is what sets artistic minimalism apart from the lifestyle of minimalism.

Since the time that the first few murals were painted and created, things such as funding and government expansion have made it difficult for these things to get the attention that many of them deserve. An example of these types of situations was a mural in Milwaukee titled “The Wayland” that had been torn down due to a needed expansions, which led to the artist Robert Wayland to refuse to paint another mural once the highway project was completed.

This mural, titled “The Pike” was made by Julio Loyola; the mural was painted during a mural event last year. The mural has raised some questions due to the fact that the fish is not as common as it was in the past.

“The streetcar there was another mural that was on sixth avenue but the building was torn down so we rescued the mural and we have it here and is probably going to be reinstalled this year again soon,” Loyola explains. “We wanted to do more murals but there was not a lot of support for having the artists being paid for painting the murals, so we were waiting for a little bit of time until it was a more supporting environment to paint murals.” While this was referring to the 2020 riots at the time, it shows that the setup for these murals takes work that often goes underappreciated in society.

To most, murals are seen as purely a tourist attraction, but to other artists and the population of small areas, its representation, the kind that minimalistic styles aren’t able to show. It's an expression in a world that prefers more functional layouts, and it gives a sense of connection to everyone involved. The question is not which murals should be allowed, it’s if these efforts deserve more than just a glance or a photo. Murals and statement pieces tell a story of communities that if removed, that part of history is gone, possibly for good. Overall, murals are impactful to society in many ways that should be appreciated more often

This mural shows a greeting card style with images inside each letter. Each image represents a part of the Kenosha community such as the lighthouse and dinosaurs from the local dinosaur museum.