Mural Artist: Shawn Dunwoody
Location: Veterans of Foreign Wars, 2431 N 48th St (South Wall)
Mural Sponsor: UNANIMOUS

Shawn Dunwoody’s mural is a playful love letter to Lincoln and University Place. His energetic spirit radiates through the bold text, playful aesthetic, and epic scale. Shawn’s mural pays homage to the neighborhood post office, war veterans, and the BLM movement, while also incorporating visual cues from other Emerge LNK murals. Multiple community members stopped by to help Shawn paint, Dawn from Domino’s (located directly across the alley from the mural) even brought pizza to the painters. You can see a peace sign on the bottom left corner of the mural that Shawn added just for Dawn!

Shawn Dunwoody is a visual artist and designer from Rochester, NY and considers himself a “multi-disciplinary creative force for change.” Shawn uses his breadth of experience as a director, producer, designer, maker, influencer, developer, and artist to establish cutting edge, creative design in a variety of forms. When creating murals, Shawn taps into the heart of a community by gathering input from community members and folks walking by to inspire the finished work.

Mural Artist: Sarah Rowe
Location: Williams Cleaners, 2541 N 48th St (North Wall)
Mural Sponsor: Bold Nebraska

Sarah Rowe is a multimedia artist based in Omaha, NE. Her work opens cross-cultural dialogues by utilizing methods of painting, casting, fiber arts, performance, and Native American ceremony in unconventional ways. Rowe’s work is participatory, a call to action, and re-imagines traditional Native American symbology to fit the narrative of today’s global landscape. Drawing from imagery in historic texts, in conjunction with images from Lakota winter counts, Rowe projects her vision of contemporary Indigenous experience into the mix with an offbeat enchantment. Rowe’s imagined landscapes are bold and vibrant, containing a shape-shifting bestiary of tales both familiar and strange. Rowe holds a BA in Studio Art from Webster University, studying in St. Louis, MO, and Vienna, Austria. She is of Lakota and Ponca descent.

Mural Artist: Oria Simonini
Location: LUX Center for the Arts, 2601 N 48th St (West Wall)
Mural Sponsor: The Lincoln Cornhusker Marriott Hotel

Oria Simonini’s mural depicts Amaya – a young third generation Hmong-American girl – enveloped in a vibrant display of color and symbols. The patterns used in the mural are sourced from textiles, an important visual language used by many to pass down history, traditions, and culture. The 3 stencils used on the wall were taken from Hmong paj ntaub (flower cloth); it is said that it comes from Hmong women who communicated with a visual code onto their clothing when their own language was forbidden. The 3 symbols chosen are the elephant’s foot (luck), the heart, and the home. Oria was thinking of Amaya’s grand-parents, who migrated to Nebraska decades ago, and to have Amaya, who is able to reap the “fruits” of their labor and journey, to be surrounded by luck, the home, and love. Finally, the stairs are decorated with birds and flowers from Chiapas, Mexico.

Oria Simonini is a Latinx artist based in Omaha, NE. Her work focuses on the human experience of the highly politicized and polarized topic that is immigration. Oria received her Bachelor of Fine Art from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 2018.

Mural Artist: Focus Smith
Location: LUX Center for the Arts, 2601 N 48th St (West Wall of Parking Lot)

Mural Artist: Presley Shellhase
Location: LUX Center for the Arts, 2601 N 48th St (East Wall of Parking Lot)

This mural was designed by Presley Shellhase, a seventh grader at Mickle Middle School at the time, with the help of her friends and family, CLC members, and UNL Honor Program Members. Her artwork was selected at the Walk Together event hosted in 2022 and she received private lessons at the LUX to transform it into a mural. The mural features a myriad of colorful flowers and striking set of eyes to honor the memory of Marsha P. Johnson – known as an outspoken advocate for gay rights, Johnson was one of the prominent figures in the Stonewall uprising in 1969. “She was a really big part of LGBTQ history and really helped kickstart a lot of the laws that got put in place later on,” said Shellhase, ”So I thought that if I put this out there then people are a lot more likely to learn about her.” The mural can be seen on the LUX's Ceramics Center wall.

Mural Artist: Ana Marietta
Location: Suds N' Scissors, 2621 N 48th St (North Wall)
Mural Sponsor: Rhonda Seacrest and the Lincoln Community Foundation

Ana Marietta’s love of nature comes through with this monumental work featuring fierce great blue herons. She was inspired by the ability artists have to make impossible things come true through art – like fish that fly or birds that can swim. Her hope is to illustrate a scene of a fantastic dream that can inspire a community to imagine and create.

Ana Marietta is an agronomist, sculptor and mural artist. She was born in Barranquitas, Puerto Rico and currently lives in Houston, Texas. Ana graduated from the University of Puerto Rico Mayagüez in 2005 where she studied Art and Animal Science. Within her work, Ana incorporates imaginary animals and humanoid beings. Her hybrid creatures portray scenes of peace in times of conflict, in a physically impossible environment to play with the viewers’ imagination.

Mural Artist: Eder Muniz
Location: NE Electric Tattoo Co, 2633 N 48th St (South Wall)
Mural Sponsors: Ayars & Ayars and Ameritas

Eder Muniz brought a piece of Bahia to our little ‘burb. His mural embodies the spirit and magic of the natural world – celebrating ‘oneness’ and the connection between all living things. This eye-catching, vibrant display of color and life encourages us to care for and protect all life forms surrounding us.

Eder Muniz is a self-taught graffiti and mural artist from Salvador da Bahia, Brazil. His bright and vivid murals incorporate animals, human figures, abstract and surreal details to explore the relationship and balance between nature and man. Eder captures the spirit and magic of the natural world in a style all his own.

Mural Artist: Susie Shepherd
Location: 2719 N 48th St (North Wall)
Mural Sponsor: This mural was funded by an NEA Challenge America Grant awarded to NeigborWorks Lincoln.

Susie Shepherd (she/her) is an artist from Northeast Lincoln and has always dreamed of bringing a mural to life. Her work uses watercolor, acrylics, ink, mixed media, and frequently uses the image of a dragonfly to represent the power of transformation. Susie felt called to work in the field of addiction recovery and her greatest joy is seeing the individuals she works with be successful. She is always encouraging the people she works with to try new things and is happy to be a part of their recovery story. Susie is partnering with members in recovery at The Oxford House to bring this mural project to life.

Mural Artist: Nolan Tredway
Location: Kind Life Dispensary, 2723 N 48th St (North Wall)
Mural Sponsor: Firespring

Nolan Tredway’s quirky pop individualism marks the north of the 48th Street murals. His work most often teeters within this realm and a surrealistic space – interplaying creatures, human figures, and objects in colorful, dream-like scenes. This specific mural was his first piece like it in his hometown, Lincoln! It explores ideas of the past and future. The mural is bisected by an electric pole which Nolan used to his advantage and played into his theme of duality. One unique feature is that this piece floats off the wall to allow the ivy behind it to thrive and interact with the mural!

Nolan Tredway is a local Nebraskan artist, Co-Director of Tugboat Gallery, and Founder of the performance art collective, Kindred. Nolan was raised in the Great North by a mountain and burning forest. He learned the art of storytelling from his time among the Volkos, before studying Art at the University of Nebraska and Function Ortega y Gassett in Toledo, Spain.

Mural Artist: Wes Staley
Location: Empowered Healing, 2722 N 48th St (North Wall)
Mural Sponsor: Empowered Healing

Wes Staley, a nonbinary tattoo artist, was selected as the muralist to create a large-scale piece dedicated to Brandon Teena – a transgender man from Lincoln who was raped and murdered 30+ years ago in Humboldt, Nebraska. With his portrait, positive affirmations and a rainbow ribbon wrapping around the building, Wes hopes this mural is comforting to those who pause and reflect on Brandon’s memory. During the mural’s official debut and dedication ceremony, Wes said “To the younger generations of trans and queer youth, I hope you continue to learn about our history, about those who came before us, the sacrifices that were made to simply be who we are, and that it gives you inspiration to join the ongoing fight for a better future.”

Mural Artist: Focus Smith
Location: Jerusalen Bakery, 2700 N 48th St (South Wall)
Mural Sponsors: Bold Nebraska and Union Bank & Trust

This electric mural by Lakota Artists Derek ‘Focus’ Smith is a trippy Black Hills vision – a vivid symbology of healing come to life. The Bear or “Mato” serves as a focal point and is revered amongst the Lakota as a healer and protector. Once it’s knowledge and medicine reach the heart, it becomes wisdom. The saying “speak with your heart” is thus derived from this narrative. Surrounding the bear and heart are two cleansing, healing herbs – cedar and sage – as well as beadwork designs. The background reveals the rolling Black Hills and cathedral spires of South Dakota. Small crosses fill the mural to represent and remember Indian boarding school children. Above the bears head is a “1UP mushroom” in reference to the cultural icon Super Mario Bros. Focus added in layers of meaning to this mural while also teaching/working with the Trauma Warriors, a group of local indigenous youth.

Derek ‘Focus’ Smith is a Lakota graffiti artist based in Rapid City, SD and Co-Founder of About This Life, Inc. Focus aims to foster awareness, connection, and healing through his illuminating imagery.

Mural Artist: Watie White
Location: Blixt Storefront Theater, 2626 N 48th St (South Wall)
Mural Sponsors: The Lincoln Cornhusker Marriott Hotel and Cline Williams

Watie White’s mural is part of a larger series – ‘100 People’ – featuring woodcut portraits of social change-makers and advocates throughout the region. Each portrait is a thoughtful collaboration between Watie and the individual – with the intention of portraying a genuine, personal, and revealing narrative. Download the ‘100 People’ app to unlock hidden content in augmented reality! Each of the thirteen panels was also selected by the 30+ year tenant, Sandy, from Gaga’s Greenery and Flowers. The relationships between the artists and the small businesses hosting the murals were key to the project’s success.

Watie White is a painter, printmaker, and public artist based in Omaha, NE. Watie’s studio has produced recent public art projects in collaboration with Habitat for Humanity-Omaha, InCommon Community Development, and Justice for Our Neighbors-NE, Omaha healthy Kids Alliance, Omaha Housing Authority and Omaha Public Schools.