VIDEO: Street artist Jeks brings his mesmerizing & photorealistic work to a downtown Chilliwack wall: Mural Festival 2026
Jeks, who is one of the best hyper-realistic muralists in the world, is one of 11 artists helping put the Fraser Valley on global map
July 12, 2026
There is now so much public art in Chilliwack, so many otherwise drab walls turning heads, that some residents might almost take it for granted, overlook the fact that world-class artists are putting the community in the spotlight.
Over the last few years, people likely didn’t realize they were walking past a famous Parisian street artist (Temponok) painting a wall on Yale Road next to a church, or a world-renowned Dutch 3D muralist (Leon Keer) adorning a wall with teddy bears on Mill Street.
One of the best parts of the Chilliwack Mural Festival is how there are always local artists included who get a chance to fill a wall with their work alongside internationally known muralists who come to town to help put the city on the global art map.
This weekend self-taught master of the spray can, hyper-realist Jeks finished off his latest masterpiece on a wall in the Victoria Avenue parking lot just northeast of Five Corners.
Those walking by the photorealistic image will be forgiven for thinking it's a building wrap rather han a street mural.
Jeks, whose real name is Brian Lewis, is from Greensboro, North Carolina, and creates photo-realistic paintings with nothing but cans of spray paint. Not all his work looks like photographs or surreal version of real life, but much of it does, including the new work downtown Chilliwack, a dream-like image of a porcelain-skinned girl with a thoughtful gaze into the middle distance over a white rose.
The realism is remarkable, and akin to his painting of the Bryan Cranston character from Breaking Bad at Lackawanna Plaza in Montclair, New Jersey, a massive 30,000-square-foot mural of underwater sea creatures on the headquarters of a health and beauty company in Stuart, Florida, or the a mesmerizing image of a beautiful female face criss-crossed with vines and flowers on a distillery and event space in Lexington, North Carolina.
He told me his latest piece in downtown Chilliwack took him about three days. Those weren’t long days, he took breaks, so probably 20 hours in total. He said he usually takes two days to complete a mural.
Jeks is sponsored by Monster Energy drinks and has painted across North America and abroad. In Canada, among places, he has murals in Halifax, Toronto, and at the Calgary Stampede. In B.C., his only walls – yes, plural – are in Chilliwack. His mural completed and ‘signed’ on Saturday (July 11, 2026) isn’t his first in Chilliwack or his last.
Jeks is also responsible for the owl mural on the Victoria Avenue wall of Gunther’s Delicatessen (formerly Multi-Pack). Next, he’s headed to the new alley between Amato Trattoria and Red Chilies pub at Five Corners to create a pasta-forward if potentially provocative piece of art.
This year there are 11 artists from five countries painting from June 15 to August 16 in downtown Chilliwack, according to the Chilliwack Mural Festival’s website.
“They will be painting stories of endangered wildlife, Indigenous heritage, social justice, and the raw power of the natural world.”
Those 11 artists were chosen from 1,141 applications so there is no shortage of quality and diversity. The festival isn’t just two months of murals painted, it’s an actual event with street party and tours on August 14 and 15, and workshops with more tours on August 16.
Visit www.chilliwackmuralfestival.com for more details.
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Paul J. Henderson
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