116 3rd St SE
Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52401
New murals debut in New Bohemia, Czech Village districts after overcoming challenges
Colombian artist’s work installed in Iowa despite denied entry to United States
Sep. 8, 2025 5:30 am
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CEDAR RAPIDS — New murals are just starting to blossom in New Bohemia and the Czech Village as summer draws to a close.
But their artists never stepped foot in Cedar Rapids.
Thanks to unprecedented challenges for murals in Cedar Rapids, three new pieces of art are breaking ground with new installation methods that allowed them to be created from afar.
Artist Nathalia Gallego Sanchez, the painter from Colombia known as Gleo, wasn’t going to let a denial of entry at the airport stop her.
“Although boundaries are drawn, I’ve learned that they blur through the creative acts that unite us,” she said. “It was about understanding that, in creation, there are infinite possibilities for materializing an idea, for finding freedom amid so much limitation.”
If you go:
Two dedication ceremonies are scheduled to celebrate three new paintings across New Bohemia and the Czech Village in Cedar Rapids.
A dedication celebrating a mural recreating “Girl in Scarf” by Czech artist Joža Uprka will be held on Sept. 18 at 10 a.m. at 87 16th Ave. SW.
Dedication for “Floral Energy,” the pair of murals at Fulton Lofts, will be held on Sept. 23 at 10 a.m. at 1220 Third St. SE.
How it started
As Chad Pelley finished development of the new Fulton Lofts in Cedar Rapids, he wanted to add beauty as much as function to 1220 Third St. SE in the New Bohemia District.
With consultation from On View gallery owner Bex Hurn, his directive for the new murals was boiled down to a few words:
- feminine
- vibrant
- edgy
- colorful
- nothing safe
Pelley’s “surrogate mom,” Shirley Santee, lived nearby on Fourth Street SE until her death in 2015. He wanted a way to remember her, too.
“For me, it’s a moment of paying respect to a woman who meant so much to me,” Pelley said. “When she passed, I wanted the opportunity to memorialize her and pay respect. She was literally a saint on this earth and a mother to so many children.”
After Hurn became acquainted with Gleo through colleagues in Creston, Iowa, they invited Gleo to submit a proposal for two murals — one on each side of the Fulton Lofts building at 1220 Third St. SE.
After seeing Gleo’s mock-up, Pelley was hooked.
Hitting a roadblock
After years of planning, Gleo embarked on a trip to Iowa in June to paint the pair of murals in person.
The artist, known for her murals internationally, has painted over the last 15 years throughout multiple countries across Europe, North America and South America. Her last painting in the United States was finished in Kansas City.
But this year, she was denied entry to the United States by Customs and Border Protection amid drastic changes to regulations and protocol at legal ports of entry.
She was returned to Colombia, forcing her and Cedar Rapids stakeholders to regroup.
“For a while, I considered not continuing with the project because the biggest challenge was going through one of the worst experiences I’ve ever had in my life — a violent border that prevented me from physically doing what I naturally do in my life’s work,” Gleo said.
But Pelley was committed to her vision. It was Gleo’s mural, or no mural at all.
After some research, they found a new way forward: Polytab.
“I don’t know Iowa … but I feel like we’ve built a bridge where we belong and are closer despite our differences and distance,” the artist said. “The murals are an embodiment of all those efforts to find each other and communicate.”
A different method for murals
Polytab, described as a kind of wallpaper, takes a high resolution scan of an artist’s work and prints it in large scale for outdoor application.
Gleo’s larger portrait-style mural, “Woman,” is 18 by 38 feet. Its floral companion, “Fluorescence,” is 21 by 28 feet.
Ben Volta, owner of Mural Provisions, specializes in printing and fabricating the method that has been in use for about 40 years. In August, he flew from Philadelphia to install it himself.
“We watched everything going down with (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) and how everything is changing. You often feel powerless in what you can do,” he said. “When you hear stories like this where you can help in some way beyond protesting, my skill set is able to serve in a way that’s hard to otherwise.”
Gleo’s mural, shipped on a smaller canvas to a flatbed scanner in Long Island and printed in large pieces, came to life in Cedar Rapids by applying non-woven fabric saturated with masonry primer.
“It’s like a sheet of primer, so it breathes like paint with little fibers holding it together. When moisture goes into the wall, it goes in the same way,” Volta said. “Paint is always breathing.”
Thanks to a special varnish that protects it from sun damage, the murals will last for many years with proper maintenance.
Learning the new method was a curve for Gleo, but one that opened to her a whole other realm full of novelty and new possibilities.
“It involved unlearning an entire creative process and relearning it — being aware of the details, colors and shapes so that they would be translated and legible in the large format,” she said. “It became a whole new world of fun that helped me return to painting, heal and weave new ways of creating.”
What they mean
Together, the pair of murals represent the natural flow of life’s energy.
“Flowers concentrate the effort of plant life toward light and spirit, in a silent and constant search for the expansion of its being,” the artist explains in an accompanying poem.
“These colorful beings somehow remind us that the same energy that beats within us, the one that makes plants flourish, shows us that we are tangible expressions of life, navigating the constant changes between birth and death for the eternal creation of life.
“We are what was, we are today, and we will be tomorrow.”
The murals’ journey to fruition, and the determination it required, embodies the unstoppable forces they depict. Through it, Gleo built from scratch a different way to create.
“Art is more than the materiality of the mural; art is the tool with which we accompany, communicate and transform, navigate situations, and create new experiences,” she said. “When difficulty arose in this project, I became more eager to be part of the solution, not part of the problem, of fear and frustration.”
Chosen in part for its vibrant color scheme, Hurn said the bright colors will brighten the neighborhood during dark winters. The border of the murals, painted in a style similar to the Alphonse Mucha inspired mural across the bridge in the Czech Village, offers a nod tying both neighborhoods together.
With lush yellow flowers, Pelley said it was the perfect tribute to Santee, known by her children as “the mother of the village.”
A new mural in the Czech Village
While they were applying murals, Czech Village took the opportunity to use the Polytab method on another plain brick wall nearby.
Along the east-facing wall at 87 16th Ave SW, a new mural recreates “Girl in Scarf,” a painting by Czech artist Joža Uprka that brings to life a woman known as “the Moravian Madonna.”
Uprka, known as an “artist of the Moravian soul,” spent his life depicting cultural scenes of his country until his death in 1940. The original painting is owned by George Drost, a Chicago resident and former president of the board for the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library.
“It’s something that makes people feel like they’re in a special place,” said Monica Vernon, administrator of the Czech Village New Bohemia self-supported municipal improvement district, which helped fund all three new murals. “What the SSMID considers its job is to set the table.”
Comments: Features reporter Elijah Decious can be reached at (319) 398-8340 or elijah.decious@thegazette.com.
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