FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 3, 2023
Contact
Julie Pryde, Administrator
(217) 531-5369 /
Tanya Giannotti, Public Relations
(217) 531-2925 /
New Mural Transforms Champaign-Urbana Public Health District Building
Artist Jose Vazquez Unveils New Mural, “Journey to Prosperity.”
CHAMPAIGN, IL – The Champaign-Urbana Public Health District (CUPHD) is proud to announce the addition of a striking and vibrant large-scale mural by local artist Jose Vazquez on the front façade of its building located at 201 W. Kenyon Road in Champaign.
The recently finished mural, titled “Journey to Prosperity,” is a visual testament to the cultures, experiences, and identities in the Champaign-Urbana area. While working on concepts for the mural, Vazquez hoped to show people from all walks of life, and how CUPHD provides services to help the community thrive. According to Vazquez, the monarch butterfly was incorporated to show how people “come from all over central [Illinois] to visit CUPHD, [just like] the monarch butterfly migrates from all parts of the country to end up in the same place, for their future to have a new beginning and better life.” The piece also represents the diversity of Champaign-Urbana residents, and per Vazquez, “in the end it doesn’t matter who you are, we all want a good and long-lasting healthy life.”
Vazquez has done smaller murals for the new Martens Center and Volition video game studio in Champaign. He states he has worked on everything from “photorealistic pieces to much more stylized and cartoony images,” but that his personal style is still developing. Currently, Vazquez works as a digital artist in the gaming industry, as well as the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign's Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology Imaging Technology Group.
To see more of Vazquez’s work, visit https://www.instagram.com/chapsuno/.
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