If you’ve driven past Tinley Park Plaza at 159th Street and Harlem Avenue recently, you might have noticed the new music-themed wall mural – the newest addition to Tinley Park’s Life Amplified brand.
Created by local artist Dante DiBartolo, the immense mural depicts the power of music using vibrant colors and evocative imagery.
“I always liked the idea of public art adding beauty to a public space,” Dante said. “It turns a simple building wall into something that’s unique.”
Dante is a Benches on the Avenue artist whose 2023 entry, the cosmic-themed “Spaceflight,” is located on the north side of the train tracks on Oak Park Avenue.
“The benches were an opportunity to just have fun with art, to play around with new materials and practice new skills,” he said. “The mural gave me the opportunity to express my painting on a much larger scale and to have fun with the creative process and making the design of the mural.”
A close look at the mural will reveal many music-related surprises hiding within the artwork, such as a stairway to heaven – a reference to the song of the same name by Led Zeppelin.
“It was a lot of fun to be able to include Easter eggs in the imagery of the design,” he said. “That’s what excited me about the project.”
Dante said no matter what the medium, he always begins a project the same way. “I start with creating some simple sketches and then, after feedback from the client, I do a final revised color sketch,” he said. “When doing something like the mural, I use a projector to trace a simple outline of the design onto the wall, which helps me keep everything in proportion and speeds up my work.”
Dante hired a few other artists to help with painting, and even used musicians from the Joliet area to pose for the mural.
“Until this project, I didn’t know how many good local musicians were in the Tinley Park, Orland Park and Joliet areas,” he said.
Dante said he hopes residents and visitors alike have as much fun with the mural as he did making it.
“I really enjoy sharing my work with the public and appreciate how people like it,” he said.