Take a Mural Tour of Jersey City
If you live in Jersey City, chances are you have a favorite neighborhood mural or two or three… New murals pop up like apartment buildings around here, but how many of the stories do you really know behind the 200+ murals dotting the city?
The Jersey City Mural Arts Program (JCMAP) started in 2013 as a Mayor’s Office Initiative to link established and emerging local, national, and international mural artists with property owners city-wide to transform Jersey City into an outdoor art gallery. Over the last 10 years, more than 200 murals have been created by 138 artists through JCMAP. Many were painted during the 2021 Mural Fest which took place in three main locations – Mana Contemporary in Journal Square, under the Rt. 78 underpass near Hamilton Park, and Harborside – and covered more than 300,000 sq. ft. of space across over 50 walls with 80 artists in two days.
While it might sound like a daunting task to find all 200+ murals, the interactive map created by JCMAP along with CANVS – an immersive platform that catalogs street art from around the globe – makes it easy to browse through neighborhoods and read about the artist and intent behind the pieces.
Here are a few of the newest additions and must-sees in every section of JC to get you started on checking off your list:
Greenville
Photo credit: JCMAP
Untitled, 2022
Artist: Louise ‘Ouizi’ Jones
Location: 171 Seaview Ave
Louise Jones (née Chen), aka Ouizi, is best known for her large-scale floral mural installations across the United States often depicting site-specific plants, such as the New Jersey native wildflowers black-eyed Susans and coneflowers seen here.
Photo credit: JCMAP
Keep Pushing, 2019
Artist: Brandan “BMike” Odums
Location: 135 Stegman St
Wanting to collaborate with the community’s youth on the mural spanning the side of Whitney M Young Jr Community School, Brandan “Bmike” Odums – a visual artist and filmmaker – hosted Skype calls with kids to help inspire the idea of painting a “visual representation of joy, aspiration and hope.” He is the founder and director of 2-Cent Entertainment LLC – a New Orleans-based youth education social enterprise that produces mixed media content and workshops in the overlap between pop culture and social awareness.
Photo credit: JCMAP
Hudson River Breeze, 2019
Artist: Emilio Florentine
Location: 78-80 Stevens Ave
Inspired by living in Jersey City and seeing the damaging effects of Hurricane Sandy on the city firsthand, Emilio Florentine painted this large-scale interpretation of flowers being ravaged during a hurricane against a vivid background. More of his work can be seen all around Jersey City, including Breaking Chains at 176 Newark Ave, which similarly depicts exploding flowers and chains.
Bergen-Lafayette
Photo Credit: JCMAP
Harriet Tubman, 2022
Artist: Floyd “90°” Simmons
Location: Berry Lane Park Skatepark
Although not yet listed on the official JCMap site, one of the newest murals in Bergen Lafayette celebrates the importance and history of Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad, which is believed to have ties to Jersey City. The striking purple mural was painted on the backs of concrete silos stationed in front of the skatepark in Berry Lane Park and officially dedicated with a ribbon-cutting on Harriet Tubman’s 200th birthday on October 22nd, 2022.
Photo credit: JCMAP
Train and Indian V.2, 2022
Artist: Raul “SUEWORKS” Rubio
Location: 491-505 Grand St
The original Train and Indian mural has been a familiar site on Grand St. since it was first painted in 2014, but in 2022, artist Raul Rubio revised the painting to give it a fresh, brighter appearance while adding more vibrantly colored stripes and triangles that stand out brilliantly against the black background.
Photo credit: JCMAP
One Out of Many, 2019
Artists: How & Nosm
Location: 74 Orient Ave
Identical twins Raoul and Davide Perré, aka How and Nosm, are known for their large-scale murals in their signature detailed red, black, and white-based imagery. However, for Jersey City, they added some extra vibrancy as part of the coordinated PAINT (RED) murals and installations campaign across Washington DC, New York, Berlin, London, Paris, Jersey City, Accra, Malmo, Cape Town, and Lyon. Alongside the murals, (RED) unveiled interactive digital artwork and many other ways to join the fight to end AIDS with PAINT (RED) SAVE LIVES.
Historic Downtown
Photo credit: JCMAP
Art of Illumination, 2022
Artist: Paws21
Location: 400 Newark Ave
Jersey City-born Abdul “Paws21” Gonsalves is recognized as one of Northern New Jersey’s premier urban artists whose art can be found all over Jersey City. For this piece, inspiration came from “the maze within…where change begins” as well as “tawheed” or “oneness in God.”
Photo credit: JCMAP
Same As It Ever Was, 2022
Artist: RH Doaz
Location: 290 Bright St
RH Doaz is a contemporary painter, illustrator, and muralist whose work often depicts the natural world, especially birds. For this mural, Doaz imagined a world where puffins are forced to adapt to living in a tropical climate to survive because of the harmful effects of climate change disrupting and destroying natural habitats.
Photo credit: JCMAP
Under Toe, 2022
Artist: Catherine Hart
Location: 306 Newark Avenue
Catherine Hart is a full-time drawer, painter, and mural artist/collaborator who has both led and assisted mural projects in Kentucky, Texas, Tennessee, Kansas, New Jersey and North Carolina. Her signature bright, un-outlined shapes and colors can be seen here as well as on the iconic 2016 Jersey City Giraffe mural hanging its tongue out above Porta.
The Heights
Photo credit: JCMAP
Sowing Seeds of Light, 2019
Location: 164 Hutton St
Created by Jari WERC Alvarez and conceptual artist Geraluz, this fantastical mural was inspired by the idea of planting new ideas for the future, being grateful, and “having courage to stand up and defend inequalities in order to free ourselves from oppressive powers. When we plant a seed of love, or a seed of knowledge, a tree of abundance and wisdom grows to feed our souls and our minds.”
Photo credit: JCMAP
Cold Lavender, 2019
Artist: Rorshach Collective
Location: 666 Tonnele Ave
Rorshach Collective consists of brothers Andre León and Robert Ramone from Newark who, inspired by their upbringing, focus was circumventing the obstacles set against them through artistic expression. “Cold Lavender” is one of a series of murals inspired by geometric abstraction and modern expressionism with an ‘80s aesthetic often found in their work.
Photo credit: JCMAP
Untitled, 2019
Artist: Swati Rostagi
Location: Leonard Gordon Park
Swati, originally based in Jersey City, wanted to decorate the court walls of Leonard Gordon Park Conservancy in a way that would connect with the South Asian population surrounding the park. Influenced by folk and tribal arts of India and motifs as well as her background as a henna artist, Swati chose vibrant colors and henna-inspired linework designs that speak to both her own artistic style and vibe of the community at large.
Journal Square
Photo credit: JCMAP
Shauquethqueat’s Eutrochium, 2021
Artist: Mona Caron
Location: 24 Cottage St
The towering 245-foot-high mural by Swiss-born Mona Caron spans 23 floors and brings with it a warning that nature will eventually win, and change will come. With no other tall buildings around to obscure it, it truly feels like the Joe Pye weed – a native wildflower to NJ and not actually a weed – is taking back the city as it stretches into the sky.
Photo credit: JCMAP
David and Goliath, 2021
Artist: DISTORT
Location: 507 Summit Ave
DISTORT’s distinct style of combining imagery inspired by classicism paintings with intensely detailed, realistic, large-scale graffiti techniques can be found all over Jersey City and the world. Painted as part of the JC Mural Festival, “David and Goliath” depicts David casting a stone toward the large Journal Squared buildings while a workman digs the tunnels for the PATH trains.
Photo credit: JCMAP
Liquid Lights, 2019
Artist: Dan Kitchener
Location: 88 Wallis Ave
Dan “DANK” Kitchener is a British artist who often finds inspiration in lonely urban landscapes, street lights, high-rises, and overall gritty environments. For this mural, he brought the rainy streets of Times Square alive with smeared, vibrant colors that make the blurred billboards really feel like they’re glowing, all done freehand in spray paint.
McGinley Square
Photo credit: JCMAP
Vincent Pantozzi, 2019
Artist: David Sami
Location: 56 Jordan Ave
Along with the three-story mural painted on the side of lifelong Jersey City resident and World War I Veteran Sgt. Vincent Pantozzi’s home where he operated a restaurant for 30 years, The City of Jersey City and Office of Cultural Affairs also honored the vet with a Sgt. Pantozzi Plaza street dedication in 2022.
Photo credit: JCMAP
Untitled, 2019
Artist: Britt Ford
Location: 8 Foye Place
Just in case you find yourself in an unfamiliar spot, Hoboken-based artist Britt Ford has you covered with some brightly colored “you are here” signage for McGinley Square alongside a map in the shape of the Square’s streets and boundaries to help you find your way around.
Photo credit: JCMAP
Bang Bang Boogie!, 2018
Artist: Ruben Sanchez
Location: 181 Monticello Ave
Sanchez created this mural as a tribute to hip hop culture and its origins, featuring an abstract depiction of an old-school block party, complete with iconic fire hydrant pumping water and boombox. According to the artist, “Keeping it local, I took the color palette from New Jersey’s Sugarhill Gang verse in their famous ‘Rappers Delight’: ‘I’d like to say hello to the black to the white, the red and the brown (dark red in this case), the purple and yellow.’”
West Side
Photo credit: JCMAP
Secret Garden, 2022
Artist: Seth
Location: 278 Duncan Ave
Seth is known worldwide for his large-scale murals depicting childhood, innocence, and determination. His faceless characters are often depicted looking out onto a more colorful world or adding color to it themselves through playing, roller skating, and other childlike activities.
Photo credit: JCMAP
Maybe It’s Me, 2019
Artist: BK Foxx
Location: 386 Bergen Ave
BK Foxx is a New York-based artist who specializes in photorealistic murals in only spray paint – no brushes, projectors, or stencils. Her reference images are translated onto the wall with hyper-realistic skill that is meant to be thought-provoking to the viewer.
Photo credit: JCMAP
Thinking Outside the Box, 2017
Artist: Peeta
Location: 910 Montgomery St
Peeta is a master of painting optical illusions by fusing traditional shapes with 3D-style that plays with the building’s architecture to give texture and extreme angles to flat surfaces. For this mural, the wall all becomes a jutting, floating stack of boxes flying out towards the viewer, causing them to take a second, third, and fourth look to figure out exactly what is going on.
We hope this small sampling of incredible Jersey City murals inspires you to check out some new and amazing street art for yourself!
