City Wide Art Project Celebrates The Greenwood District

Tulsa skyline, monochrome silhouette. Vector illustration.

A new citywide art project is celebrating the culture and history of Tulsa‘s Greenwood District.

If you drive past North MLK Jr Boulevard, the underpass is currently painted yellow, but it will soon be a full mural designed to connect the present with the past.

The artwork on MLK will be one of six pieces on the I-244 underpass from Greenwood Avenue to Main Street. The artwork for each underpass will focus on different themes related to the street it’s on.

The themes include creativity, resilience, vision, justice, hope, and remembrance.

The initiative kicked off on Elgin and has continued onto North Martin Luther King Jr Boulevard, where the theme “Vision” will pay homage to the original developers of Greenwood.

Jarica Walsh is the project’s visual and public arts director and says this has been something the Oklahoma Arts Council has been working on for several years.

She says it’s all about reconnecting the city of Tulsa with its storied past.

“The highway itself did serve as a separator; it removed several homes, many homes when the highway was put in, and so we wanted to make sure this was taking advantage of the opportunity of trying to reconnect with north Tulsa,” Walsh said.

The installation is scheduled to be implemented at four underpasses over the next few months and is set to be complete by May of next year.