08/04/2026: The Next Evolution of Creativity & The Arts

Darius Dennis's career has continuously focused on murals and the history of painting on walls. In 1989 he was introduced to the ancient Lascaux Cave paintings in France during an Early Childhood Education Course titled Caveman Art. The paintings at Lascaux, coupled with frescoes by Michelangelo and his contemporaries during the Italian Renaissance, and the metamorphosis of New York Graffiti into modern-day Street Art—and how all of these connect to hand-painted advertising, namely the Rock N’ Roll billboards of the 1960s through the early 1980s—have impressed and intrigued him for as long as he has confidently wielded a brush.

When these examples of craft and creative techniques are placed into a single conversation, it is easy to see that they all can be used to tell a story, educate about moments in time, engage the public, and promote an organization/product/group or business. The power of the hand painted mural dissolves the barriers of economic and physical accessibility to viewership limited and confined to the four walls of a museum. The internet breaches the bounds of geographic territories by making outdoor public works easy to share on social media and text messages with our family and friends all over the world.

His work is invested in the human tradition of hand painted murals and signs with hopes that it will continue to prove itself a craft that is irreplaceable. Even as technology quickly advances and other seemingly less expensive and quicker ways to produce media come to be, the spirit of his work is to employ hand painted murals in spaces that prove they remain one of the most impactful mediums to human perception and interaction. Through years of studying public wall painting, his practice utilizes iconography of the times to tell historical and cultural histories in a large vibrant way, catching the awareness of the public during installation with intentional placemaking that keeps the public talking for years to come.

Incorporated in 2022, Big Wall Sign & Mural is one of Chicago's most versatile and elevated large-scale mural production houses in the Midwest. With a focus on large scale murals and hand painted signs accessible to smaller and independent clients we believe that craft is key and that the public deserves work that is museum quality. Big Wall intends to remain competitive in the arenas of Commercial Billboard Painting and Painted Wallscapes by holding headquarters in Chicago instead of New York and Los Angeles. Over the years Big Wall has collaborated with brands and designers that use Augmented Reality in collaboration with large scale paintings.

Big Wall is a Disabled Veteran Certified, Minority Business Enterprise that is registered at City and Federal Levels. Big Wall looks forward to continuing to create art that keeps the public looking high in the sky.