City of Windsor Selects Artist and Sets Date for Unveiling of Pelissier Street Parking Garage Enhancements
The City of Windsor is proud to announce that local artist David “DERKZ” Derkatz has been commissioned to create a large-scale mural across two main-level interior walls of the Pelissier Street Parking Garage. An unveiling is scheduled for the evening of Saturday, September 27, 2025.
Save-the-Date for the Multi-Project Unveiling
The City and partners are preparing to host the “Fall in Love With Downtown Windsor - Again” event in September 2025. A full month of activities and events is being planned to showcase and celebrate downtown Windsor, the broader community, and the creative sectors that help to build and sustain a vibrant and exciting city core. As part of this celebration, planning is underway to host the second “Classical in the Concrete” Windsor Symphony Orchestra (WSO) concert in the parking garage on Saturday, September 27, 2025, in the evening. The free event will include the unveiling of DERKZ’s The Language of My World murals, along with the “Park in Perfect Harmony” installations in the garage. Further details of the entire month of programming and events will be released near the end of the summer season.
About the Mural Artist
David Derkatz (DERKZ) is the chief executive officer (CEO) of DERKZ Murals & Fine Art Inc., based in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. As an international and multidisciplinary artist, he specializes in creating large exterior murals using spray paint. Known for his unique style, DERKZ combines a fusion of graffiti and fine art with vivid and dynamic techniques. Alongside a range of imagery, he is particularly known for painting portraits using monochromatic values mixed with striking and vibrant colour palettes. With over a decade of experience holding a spray can, DERKZ has overcome various challenges in mural artistry, allowing him to produce high-quality work under any condition. From his early beginnings in street graffiti, he has transitioned into a professional mural artist and has painted hundreds of large-scale murals throughout his career. His work has extended internationally, and he has had the privilege of creating pieces for celebrities such as Vanilla Ice, YouTuber/boxer Jake Paul, YouTuber Tanner Fox, and more. His artistry has taken him to festivals and projects across Canada, the United States of America, Ireland, the United Kingdom, and France.
Throughout his career, DERKZ has professionally painted hundreds of murals for private clients, non-profit organizations, charities, city-funded projects, festivals, and various community-run initiatives. Many of these non-profit and communal efforts are deeply rooted in the spirit and culture of his hometown, Windsor. He is passionate about bringing out the city’s true colours and character through his work. A central focus of his projects has been the physical revitalization of neglected areas, with the goal of connecting people of all ethnicities and backgrounds through the power of art. Through his murals, he aims to inspire pride, vision, and hope among local residents, community leaders, and especially youth. In addition to his community-based work, DERKZ has participated in numerous sought-after mural festivals and private commissions, gaining valuable insights and techniques from fellow artists, event organizers, citizens, and curators. His experience in large-scale mural painting is vast and versatile, with no wall too large or challenging to tackle. Known for his “bigger the better” approach, he has been part of some of the largest mural projects in his region — including genre-defining murals in Canada. In 2020, he painted what was then the largest frontline worker mural in Canada; and in 2022, he completed one of the largest (if not the largest) Remembrance Day Memorial murals in the country, spanning 127 feet by 28 feet. The Downtown Windsor Business Improvement Association website encapsulates the artist as follows: “Think elaborate. Impressive. Grand. And you’ve got DERKZ.”
About the Mural
The Language of My World aims to portray the central theme of showcasing Windsor as one of Canada’s most multicultural communities. The mural will feature a series of individuals engaged in the act of creating through the performing arts — including music and dance. The mural is divided into two sections, with the northeast main wall section measuring 60.7 feet long by 14 feet high, and the southeast main wall section measuring 117.3 feet long by 17 feet high. The murals will cover a full surface area of approximately 2,315 square feet. The commission has been awarded at a value of $55,000 and is funded through the City of Windsor’s Parking Garage Capital Rehabilitation Program.
About “Park in Perfect Harmony”
The mural creation is part of the larger “Park in Perfect Harmony” project, which aims to beautify the popular downtown parking garage with new public art installations. The complementary project involves naming and theming all levels of the garage to honour composers Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Tchaikovsky. Theming on each floor will include an audio musical component featuring the Windsor Symphony Orchestra musicians performing segments of popular classics from the composers’ bodies of work, as well as signage sharing the history of the composers and their achievements.
The two installations — the naming and theming component, and the murals — were announced in 2024 at the special “Classical in the Concrete” concert by the WSO performed on the main level of the prominent parking garage downtown as part of a weekend of “Fall in Love With Downtown Windsor” community events.
Both the parking-level naming and theming initiative as well as the new main-level murals are intended to help beautify the parking garage that is frequently used by residents and visitors attending events, including WSO concerts and the Windsor International Film Festival (WIFF) at the nearby City-owned historic Capitol Theatre. The projects will also complement existing creative works and installations in the adjacent Art Alley, which was created in partnership between the Downtown Windsor Business Improvement Association, the City, and artists. That space includes graffiti murals, Indigenous art, lampshade art, light installations, and sculptures; and forms the backdrop for ongoing downtown events, including the Downtown Windsor Farmers’ Market.
The murals will help to beautify the parking garage, inspiring future innovative, engaging, and temporary uses of the space (for example, concerts, exhibitions, celebrations, poetry readings, markets, and more). These works of art will brighten up the parking infrastructure, create a new point of interest in the core, and connect to the already-established collection of community public art on display throughout downtown Windsor, including within Art Alley and the nearby WIFF Alley.
Both initiatives also tie into the City’s Strengthen the Core: Downtown Windsor Revitalization Plan (STC), which launched in April of 2024 to address safety, security, and cleanliness downtown while implementing measures and supporting activations to encourage new residents, businesses, and investments in the city’s core.
Quotes:
“DERKZ’s incredible work is on display across our community, and I’m excited to see this new mural come to life in the Pelissier Street Parking Garage. In launching the Strengthen the Core: Downtown Windsor Revitalization Plan, Council committed to action items, projects, and initiatives that would go beyond safety and security to also invest in place-making and creating a vibrant district in the core. DERKZ’s mural, combined with the WSO’s music and the theming of the floors of the garage, will create a unique experience for visitors to downtown Windsor. I look forward to celebrating, and to seeing and hearing, this coming September what we’ve created together.”
- Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens
“Our ‘Fall in Love With Downtown Windsor – Again’ event is going to impress and inspire so many residents and visitors in our city when it plays out in September. We’ve got a month of unforgettable experiences coming your way, with exciting details coming soon. As part of the festivities, I can’t wait to be there for the unveiling of these artistic installations at the Pelissier Street Parking Garage. Downtown Windsor has its challenges, no question, and we are working every single day to Strengthen the Core to address them, and to harness its potential. Every positive action builds on the one that came before it. The momentum is there. Investors are paying attention. We are changing the conversation, bit by bit, piece by piece, event by event. Downtown Windsor is the heart of our city. This is how we keep it healthy and strong.”
- Councillor Renaldo Agostino, Ward 3
“In Windsor, we are a mosaic of different ethnicities and cultures. Our citizens come from all over the world to make Canada their home, and everyone in Windsor brings unique skills and talents. My main goal for this specific mural was to highlight multiculturalism through performance and visual art. In this work, I depict individuals from diverse backgrounds, ages, and cultural heritages coming together as one. I wanted to express the connectivity of performance art through a wonderful symphony of song and dance that represents various cultures, languages, dances, instruments, and traditions. Music and dance connect us universally through verbal and non-verbal waves of sound and vibration. Despite their immensely different backgrounds and traditions, the artists in my mural create a symphony together through their movement and vibration — song and dance.”
- David “DERKZ” Derkatz, Artist, The Language of My World Mural
- Robert Franz, Music Director, Windsor Symphony Orchestra