New murals go up on North Court Street

FAIRFIELD – Walk along North Court Street in Fairfield and you will notice a striking series of murals that were just finished last weekend.

The murals were painted by Fairfield native Roan Bachar and two of his friends, Andrew Bickett and Kenny Morgan. One is on the north side of Frontline Print & Web, and the others are on the building just north of it that says Masonic Temple. The mural on the Frontline building was painted high on the wall using scaffolding and reads “Young at Heart.”

“Young at heart is a slogan we push that we try to live by,” Bachar said.

Bachar said the owners of Frontline Print & Web, Roeland Hekker and his son Michiel, reached out to him about painting murals on the buildings they own in downtown Fairfield. Michiel told Bachar that he was familiar with his art and that he wanted to liven up that space a block north of Central Park.

Bachar spent nearly all of his upbringing in Fairfield, moving here when he was 1-2 years old and staying for 18 years until moving away. Today he resides in St. Paul, Minnesota, where he works as a teacher and does art on the side.

“It’s cool to come back to my hometown and create, to bring back some big city energy that you’ll see in other areas,” Bachar said.

Bachar enlisted a couple of fellow artists to help complete this project in Fairfield. Bickett is a friend from St. Paul, while Morgan lives in Iowa City. The three of them started working on the murals Friday afternoon, Oct. 4 and finished Sunday morning.

Bachar said he’d love to come back to that same area to do more murals in the future, perhaps painting over what they’ve already done.

“We’d like to redo that part, and it can be something that changes every once in a while,” he said. “But the ‘Young at Heart’ will be something that stays.”

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Call Andy Hallman at 641-575-0135 or email him at andy.hallman@southeastiowaunion.com

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