Chinese-American artist Louise Jones, or “Ouizi,” has built an international reputation for herself by turning flowers into larger-than-life works of art.
Her intricate murals have found a home everywhere from the prestigious North Carolina Museum of Art and Detroit Institute for the Arts to the Smithsonian Archives.
“The flower murals are the way I made a name for myself,” Jones reflected to Pioneer Press.
“I wanted to paint a subject that was unique to myself and spoke to something deeper… being a small lady but wanting to do something larger than myself.”
Jones’ latest work can now be found at the corner of Church Street and Crawford Avenue in Skokie, a colorful botanic collection of hydrangeas, peonies, liatris, rudbeckia and the seasonal Midwestern butterfly red admiral.
The mural was commissioned by Skokie’s public arts advisory committee, tasked with incorporating a wide range of public art into the community reflective of the village’s diversity and its varying artistic points of view.
Owners of local business Engage Pilates reached out to officials in fall 2025 hoping to expand their services and see if the village would consider a mural for their west-facing wall, according to Nicholas Wyatt, assistant village manager.
“They had seen the many murals throughout Skokie and thought this would be a great opportunity to add another piece of public art to the community,” Wyatt told Pioneer Press.
The store owners were “particularly interested in a beautiful, vibrant floral design,” that would stand out in the neighborhood, he added. Jones was the perfect fit for the job.
Wyatt said the total cost of the mural was $21,850, paid for by the village’s Public Art Program, which receives funding through a small percentage fee added to larger building permits.
Officials reached out to Jones in April with a fairly broad concept idea for the wall and she worked with the committee and owners to agree on a final design plan.
Jones said cold calls like these are typically the way she begins a job.
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“I’m grateful that I have enough work out there that I will come up if you search [for flower murals],” she said.
While her projects can range from six months to upwards of a year to fully complete, Jones’ design in Skokie finished a week and a half after her paintbrush, and an assistant’s, first touched brick Aug. 3.
“The mural has received a tremendous response from the community, and we are very excited to see it become another distinctive piece of public art in Skokie,” Wyatt added.
Positive feedback remains a cherished perk of the job, Jones said, but what she enjoys most is the opportunity to fully immerse herself in the design process.
“The actual putting the paint on the wall, mixing the color and seeing the results, I think is so satisfying. But I love the whole process; it really takes my entire mental, physical [self], and a lot of my attention.”
In the consulting phase of the project, she tries to incorporate “site-specific” flowers to whatever city or environment she’s working in, along with blooms that are most beloved by the client.
“It’s important for me to ask [clients] like, ‘what is your favorite flower?’ Because that is something you’re going to see every day. If you have a strong connection to it, that’s a deeper meaning. Flowers are so personal,” she said.
Born and raised in Los Angeles, Jones studied drawing and printmaking at the University of California, Santa Cruz before relocating to Detroit in 2014.
“That’s when I started to really do murals,” she said, noting it was concurrent with the aftermath of Detroit’s infamous bankruptcy filing, when there were “lots of opportunities for people if they were willing to integrate into the new normal.”
“New businesses were opening up, and so I kind of came in at that perfect time, and I was also looking for something to latch onto as an artist and create my own thing.”
Murals were the perfect way to do that, Jones added.
Witnessing the proliferation of elaborate street displays in the city and “spending time with people who were doing art in the streets” enticed Jones to further develop her own niche within mural work.
“I built a name for myself doing [murals] and then through that, I actually started making more traditional works on canvas and getting some attention from actual galleries and museums,” she said.
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When Jones isn’t being commissioned for public murals, she’s working in her personal studio in Detroit, which also acts as the small gallery space, Grüna, for other visual artists to display their craft.
Her paintings can be found in museums and public spaces across the country, including Nashville-based gallery ZierherSmith.