Whether you’re heading to class in the early morning or you’re a giddy socialite walking east on Green Street, the vibrant “Alma Mater” mural is hard to miss. Painted by Chicago artist Levar Hoard, the artwork depicts the University’s iconic Alma Mater statue with her arms outstretched against an azure blue sky and DNA helix background.
The mural adorns the Skyline Tower and stands at a whopping 160 feet, starkly contrasting against a sea of blank brick walls. In gazing up at the mural from the streets below, the art seems to blur into a lifelike replica of the Alma Mater in the clouds.
Muralists Ryan “Yanoe” Sarfati and Eric “Zoueh” Skotnes brought Hoard’s vision to life in 2022, creating what they described as the tallest piece they had worked on at the time. In a previous interview with The Daily Illini, Hoard said the mural symbolizes the soul of the Campustown community, as “Alma” translates to “soul” in Latin.
In creating the mural, the artists said they sought to transcend the boundaries between the physical world and the sky, reinforcing Alma Mater’s status as a timeless guardian of Campustown.
