Special to the Regional Review
The Rose Kennedy Greenway Conservancy, the nonprofit responsible for the management and care of The Greenway, in partnership with Embrace and Everyone250, is thrilled to announce the commissioning of artist Rixy for the 2026 Dewey Square Mural following the Conservancy’s first-ever national open call for this site.
Launched in November 2025, the Open Call invited artists to apply for the 2026 Dewey Square Mural commission for thematic interpretations in dialogue with the country’s upcoming 250th anniversary. Artists were asked to reflect on the past, present, and future of Boston via expansive and inclusive storytelling that engages with themes of belonging, democracy, and the spirit of revolution in the city and and beyond.
Chosen unanimously by a panel of esteemed Boston artists, cultural leaders, and community members, Rixy’s proposal, entitled “The Midnight Ride,” responded to the call’s invitation with a fresh, inspirational and futuristic approach. Drawing upon elements of fantasy, creative worldbuilding, and a vibrant palette, Rixy’s proposal brings into dialogue parallel histories referenced in the title: the historic midnight ride undertaken by Paul Revere in 1776 and the lesser known alleged midnight ride of a young woman named Sybil Ludington one year later, who in 1777, is said to have ridden 44 miles through the night on horseback to alert U.S. troops of an impending attack from the British.
Rixy (b. Roxbury, MA, she/her) is a New England-based interdisciplinary street artist working at the intersections of global feminism, spirituality, storytelling, and social practice. Working across stylized murals, sculptures, paintings, and public art, Rixy’s wide-ranging practice draws upon her contemporary heritage and ancestral Latinx Caribbean diasporic roots to create complex, richly speculative worlds layered with visual narratives and chimerical femme protagonists. These elements appear throughout her existing large-scale public murals in Boston, Cambridge, Roxbury, and Lawrence, a body of work which the artist sees as bridging gaps between public and private spheres to activate vibrant third spaces.
Recent commissions of note from Rixy include the City of Boston and Boston’s Triennial Public Art Accelerator, alongside exhibitions at Street Theory Gallery in Cambridge, Hallspace Gallery in Dorchester, MECA Art Fair in the Dominican Republic, Rosa Projects in Oakland, CA, ICA/Boston, and with Wassaic Project’s Haunted Mill Residency in New York. She has received a 2023 NEFA Newell Flather Award for Emerging Leadership in Public Art, a Next Level: Aerosol USA Ambassadorship with UAE Dubai, and was an Artadia Boston finalist. Rixy earned her BA in Studio Art at UMass Boston with a concentration in Sculpture.
“We are thrilled to host Rixy as our next Greenway muralist,” said Dr. Audrey N. Lopez, Director and Curator of Public Art at the Greenway Conservancy. “As Boston prepares for a transformational year in 2026—with monumental gatherings and increased international attention—Rixy’s artwork will stand at the heart of downtown as a vibrant welcome, a beacon of imagination and possible worlds, and as an invitation to reflect upon our shared histories and intertwined futures.”
“Rixy both inspired and impressed the Artist Selection Committee with a mural proposal that met the moment of 2026– reflecting themes that Americans are celebrating during the nation’s 250th, while also offering an expansive counterpoint to revolutionary narratives often saturated in traditional colonial imagery,” said Jasper Sanchez, Assistant Curator at Boston Public Art Triennial and member of the Dewey Square Artist Selection Panel. Sanchez continued: “With this mural, the artist builds upon her practice of empowering feminist figuration to present a vision of liberty that is unapologetically Woman, Black and/or Brown, and in true revolutionary spirit.”
“It is an exciting honor to present a mural with The Rose Kennedy Greenway that shines light on the beauty of resiliency,” said Rixy, commissioned artist for the 2026 Dewey Square Mural. “I hope the work will remind and inspire viewers to see themselves as larger than life, and our interconnectedness as revolutionary, spiritual, and beautiful.”
Rixy’s commission arrives at a time when many artists across the country are responding to the nation’s 250th anniversary, oftentimes through reimagining historical figures and moments positioned as key to the founding of democracy.
From Amy Sherald’s painting Trans Forming Liberty, 2024, a work central to the artist’s solo exhibition American Sublime, originally organized by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (now on view at the Baltimore Museum of Art), to Los Angeles-based artist Ektor Rivera’s recent reimagining of German-American artist Emanuel Leutze’s Washington Crossing the Delaware (1851), contemporary artists are engaging with historical moments, symbols, and figures to expand these narratives in ways that offer and encourage new points of access, imagination, and critical reflection.
Rixy, who works primarily with aerosol-based paints for her large-scale murals, will be on-site painting the 70’ x 76’ Dewey Square mural wall by hand with an all-women painting team throughout the month of May.
The Artist Selection Panel reviewed more than 100 applicants to select and commission mural design proposals from five individual artists and one artist team, who then developed and presented their proposals to the Selection Panel for review.
In addition to selecting Rixy as the 2026 Dewey Square Muralist, the Selection Panel also unanimously chose artist Ekua Holmes and her proposal “We Are Each Others’ Suns” to be commissioned for the 2027 Dewey Square Mural, a serendipitous outcome and testament to the generative collaboration and partnership between Embrace, Everyone250, the Artist Selection Panel, and The Greenway.
Since 2012, the Dewey Square Mural has served as a focal point for bold, contemporary, and thought-provoking public art in downtown Boston. Working with a range of renowned artists, ten murals have been installed to date, each viewed by millions of residents, commuters, and tourists, and each sparking conversation and connection in Boston’s shared public space. Six of the murals have been presented in collaboration with curatorial partners, including Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Art (2012, 2013), the Museum of Fine Arts Boston (2014), MIT’s List Visual Arts Center (2015), the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum (2017), and Mass MoCA (2024).