Arthur J. Williams Jr. served six and a half years in federal prison for counterfeiting about $10 million dollars. He is infamous for having replicated the 1996 hundred dollar bill, which was said to be impossible to replicate.

While in prison Arthur said to have read about 60 biographies ranging from leaders to inventors and even painters. When he came across the biographical novel of Michelangelo written by Irving Stone, he instantly fell in love with the renaissance period.

“After reading that book I wanted to learn everything about that time period. So I took an art class in jail and during the first class they gave us a flower to paint. I ended up quitting. I didn’t wanna paint no flowers in prison.”

Soon enough he began to find an escape through painting on canvases.

“It was my world nothing else [mattered] not the fence, not the guards, not the bullshit that went on inside prison. Just me and the canvas it was a freedom that I found and fell in love with.”

After being released from prison he was tempted to fall right back into the life of crime. Two years after being released he borrowed money to begin counterfeiting once again.

His son [who had previously dwelled in the same wrong doings] caught him in the act of counterfeiting and was ashamed by it. This opened Arthur’s eyes, and after a talk with his son he decided to once and for all leave crime behind.

Arthur was feeling at an all time low, but within blank canvases he found an escape just like he did in prison.

“I kept on painting just to keep my sanity. After prison there’s nothing for felons it's hard to get a job. I went from being the world's number one counterfeiter to now cleaning toilets seven years later. Talk about a humbling experience.”

Arthur’s life after crime consisted of working during the day and creating art at night. In 2014 an opportunity presented itself when former owner of Lacuna Lofts, Joseph Cacciatore, took him under his wing. He began to work there aiding artists and running errands for them. This instantly changed his life, as he was finally making a decent living off honest work.

After working at Lacuna Lofts he began to paint houses for the next couple of years. In June 2017 he lost his house to a fire and out of the ashes the only thing that survived was a painting of his brother.

“It’s different now. This painting got like six paintings underneath it. This painting will be with me for the rest of my life. This was one of the first canvases I got when I got out of prison.”

Arthur had lost his brother and seeing that painting laying there in the ashes he felt as if it was a message; telling him that he was doing the wrong thing by painting houses. His brother always encouraged him to be an artist but Arthur would say, “there’s a million artist out there. It’s like trying to be in the NFL.”

“After that I painted this over it. It's kinda like a Phoenix. It was like I rose out of the fire and now I’m about to paint over it again. By the time I go this might have 30 paintings over it.”

Arthur then decided to pursue artistry full time and went down to Art Basel in Miami. He took four paintings and “smoked the game.” There he met Arnold Schwarzenegger and his team who found Arthur’s paintings visually satisfying because of his style.

In 2019 he was invited out to California. In only three hours Arthur made about half a million dollars from selling his paintings.

“I gave Arnold $180,000 for his charity and came back and got my gallery.”

Arthur plans to open up Da Vinci Gallery to the public in the Southside of Chicago in the near future.

Around 2 p.m. we met with Matthew Moore from Artist Replete and checked out his favorite murals in Pilsen.

Q: What neighborhood in the city has the best art?

A: There is a lot of great street art throughout Chicago but it’s in different pockets of the city. Previously I was living in River North and then when I decided to take my business more seriously, I had to decide which neighborhood I wanted to move to. I personally feel there is a higher concentration of artists making great work in the Pilsen area, so I decided to move there. If people don't think it's the best area for street art now. They will soon.

“Kind of Blue” by Rawooh. Located at 21st St. & Racine Ave.

“This all started when I was going for a jog. I was just surprised that there was no artwork on this giant space. I started thinking of an artist named Rawooh who I was working with at the time and I had a conversation with him, it stuck out to me. He mentioned how he would like to have his own big wall someday. This piece it got created off that notion. Like ‘wow’ this is an epic wall I have to figure out how to do this. I contacted the building owner, reached out via email and talked back and forth.
This is Open Kitchen and they supply food to a lot of the Chicago schools. The founder of the business is a woman, the artist Rawooh has always painted a lot of female characters. So the woman in the mural ties in with her story it’s a woman with big ambitions, dreaming and listening to music.
We went on the Open Kitchens website first thing we saw was an apple and she’s like doodling with a pencil. Rawooh created someone with big aspirations, reading and who is creative.
The current CEO of the business is Anthony Fiore. He’s really good friends with a Chicago band Rise Against and that’s their emblem with the heart and fist. The rest of it is a lot of music the artist is into and he’s Latin American so he had that Made in Mexico logo.
Then the owner's brother wanted MF Doom logo so he put that there as well. An artist named AFEKS helped with it too. This was a full month-long project the artist has a full-time job. He came opposite of his 9-5 to work on this.”

“This is only a few blocks away from the other mural. This is where the original conversation came into play that created that mural. This image of Nebula based on the curation of Ruben Aguirre. This is his space and he invited Rawooh unto this wall.
Rawooh had been used to being involved with shared artist spaces. Then he mentioned that ‘it would be dope to have my own space.’ This image and creation was the spark to create that one.
This is Rawooh right here, the curator is @likes_1, Ruben Aguirre. The other figure is made by an artist named MATR, he’s very talented as well. Yeah, this is very detailed and Rawooh’s style just captivates me.
A lot of artists don’t spend as much time and detail as he does. If you look at the original Nebula character details are just spot on.”

“Enchantress” by Czr Prz. Located at 18th St. & Ashland Ave.

“This one is by Czr Prz, his vision for this one was a woman controlling the weather in a way, like a goddess. Czr is part of the RK-AIR graffiti crew and artists like Rawooh are actually in that crew as well.
To me, this is one of the most detailed artist murals in Pilsen, along with the ones I just showed you. Its three stories and if you look at the top corner like I said he’s part of the RK-AIR crew. A lot of street artists they start in graffiti crews before they branch out to fine art and gallery art. Still one of the most detailed and you almost don’t notice that there are four hands until you look at its closely because it blends in so well.”

Matthew Moore is the creator of Artist Replete which he launched in 2017. Artist Replete focuses on the emergence of artists and their search for recognition.

“Replete pretty much means the opposite of starving. So that was the basis of the opposite of a starving artist,” said Matthew.