If the Walls Could Talk

In Cincinnati’s West End, on the corner of W Liberty Street and Central Avenue, William Rankins Jr.’s face takes up the 40-foot wall behind beloved longtime soul-food restaurant Ollie's Trolley. On the neighboring building are fragments from the only remaining mural by the 68-year-old artist who once had dozens of his paintings emblazoned across various structures throughout the city from the 1980s through the 2000s. Across the street, the threat of development and further erasure looms: a $300 million soccer stadium for FC Cincinnati has sprouted up. The former building was once covered with a mural by him, too. “The removal of my work has erased an important part of history from my life,” says Rankins.

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A homage to the Cincinnati legend, the mural was created by activist, physician, and artist Chip Thomas and unveiled last week. “I walk by faith now, not by sight,” Rankins told Thomas while he sat for his photograph earlier this year. He has often repeated this phrase since losing his sight in 2014 as the result of a stroke. In turn, Thomas named the work Sight ≠ Vision. The windows are where Rankins eyes would be. “They serve as the windows to Mr. Rankins’ heart and soul,” says Thomas. 

For Thomas, this art project is a way to honor the artist’s legacy and draw attention to the dwindling state of the city’s Black neighborhoods as gentrification seeps in. His signature public mural method underscores this precariousness: the wheatpaste with gel medium generally lasts for two to three years. Despite the lthreat of development, “I hope the building will be saved,” says Thomas. Today, more than three decades of Rankins’ murals are gone, including a 1995 painting on the Arts Consortium of Cincinnati, which depicted images of boxers, basketball players, a ballerina, and “pictures of the neighborhood children who attended the consortium arts, theater, and music programs,” Rankins recalls. 

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Thomas, who also goes by his street artist name jetsonorama, developed his signature large-scale, photorealistic murals in 2009 while he was working as a physician on the Navajo Nation reservation. For the next two decades, he photographed the community and presented his images on local buildings. In “Chip Thomas and the Painted Desert Project,” which runs at the Zaha Hadid-designed Contemporary Arts Center, through January 5, 2025 as part of the 2024 FotoFocus Biennial, moving scenes from the artist’s life’s work fill an entire floor. But it is his work on the streets of Cincinnati that speaks to the moment.

When the Arizona-based artist was commissioned by FotoFocus to create a public artwork in the city, he set his sights on honoring a local figure and recalled Rankins’ story.. Thomas reached out to get in touch and soon after landed on a site: Ollie's Trolley, the only remaining Black-owned business on Liberty Street in what used to be an all Black neighborhood—and the site of the remnants of Rankins’ last remaining mural. 

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Thomas then approached Ollie’s Trolley owner Marvin Smith about using his wall, and Smith agreed. But it wasn't until Smith invited Thomas inside the building that the artist understood the full scope of Rankins’ connection to the space. "At least two of the floors were filled with works Mr. Rankins had painted over the years, going back to the '80s,” says Thomas as he scrolls through snapshots on his phone: majestic landscapes, a black-and-white photo rendering of Tupac along with various famous Black musicians, an iconic scene from The Wizard of Oz, 1939. 

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“It seemed perfect to have a picture of Mr. Rankin's in this building that houses a library of his art,” Thomas says.

In front of the mural for the unveiling, spirits are high. “It’s you all the way,” Smith tells Rankins, in a video taken by Thomas. “You finally got the credit you’ve deserved for years,” he continues. “It’s been a long time coming,” Rankins replies as he processes just how large-scale the mural is. “What’s in the background?” he asks. “There is no background,” Smith tells his friend. “It’s all you.”

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Sight Vision is on view at Ollie’s Trolley at 1607 Central Ave, Cincinnati, OH 45214. “Chip Thomas and the Painted Desert Project,” runs until January 5, 2025, at the Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center 44 E 6th St, Cincinnati, OH 45202.