When you next swing by the Short North, the Mona Lisa will still be looking at you in her own way, but she’ll be doing so from a slightly different perch. After residing for more than 30 years on the side of a building on Bollinger Place, the arts district’s signature mural—artist Brian Clemons’ imaginative riff on Leonardo da Vinci’s painting of a woman with a curiously cryptic grin—has been retired from its longtime location.
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“This mural has been an icon in the Short North now for decades,” says Betsy Pandora of the Short North Alliance, but even icons experience wear-and-tear. “We started to notice that the exterior of the building was evolving in a way that we were likely going to lose the art,” Pandora says. “We took some measures, about five years ago, to try and stop her aging process.”
Those steps slowed but did not arrest the mural’s decline. Instead, leaders decided to commission a new mural in a new spot. Everything would be different— everything, that is, except for the subject of the piece.
“I think everyone cared deeply about the fact that this piece of art has had such a legacy and such an enduring history,” Pandora says.
After settling on a new location of high visibility—the side of the Moxy hotel on North High Street—artist Mandi Caskey was selected to summon into existence an all-new Mona Lisa. She’s still angled sideways, as in Clemons’ original, but she’s been given a new lease on life with bolder colors and kinetic swooshes.
“My approach was less about recreating the Mona Lisa exactly and more about translating her into my visual language,” Caskey says by email. “I wanted to preserve her essence while allowing space for my own style, textures and emotional tone to come through.”
Whether or not the new Mona Lisa, now called She Moves With Color, will have as long a shelf life as its earlier iteration is unknown. But for now, and likely for years to come, it will give visitors to the Short North reason to smile.
“I hope people feel a sense of curiosity when they come across it,” Caskey says. “Whether that’s recognizing something familiar in a new way or just being pulled in by its presence. Ideally, it creates a moment where someone slows down, even briefly, and connects with it.”
More to do this summer in arts, theater and film
Tavares Strachan: The Day Tomorrow Began, opens May 16
The Columbus Museum of Art at The Pizzuti will be the site for an exhibition featuring Bahamas-born conceptual artist Strachan and the many modes in which he works, including sculpture, painting and what are said to be installations in large dimensions. The sure-to-be surprising, guaranteed-to-be-eyepopping show runs through Jan. 3, 2027. $10, or free for members, columbusmuseum.org
Actors’ Theatre of Columbus, May 21-Sept. 6
Nothing mixes quite like gentle summer breezes and riveting dramatic storytelling. This year, the troupe, which performs Thursdays through Sundays in German Village’s Schiller Park, will offer Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew (May 21-June 14), Peter and the Starcatcher (June 18-July 12), Shakespeare’s Othello (July 16Aug. 9) and Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None (Aug. 13-Sept. 6). Free, theactorstheatre.org
Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum, Reopening May 22
Following a six-month closure for renovations, the institution on Ohio State University will reopen in May. For the cartoon deprived, leaders have seen to it that the wait will have been worth it: A new permanent exhibition, Story of Comics, will trace 400 centuries’ worth of comics history, while the exhibition Life is Complicated presents works by cartoonist Chris Ware from May 23 to Jan. 3, 2027. Free, cartoons.osu.edu
Water for Elephants, June 9-14
This Broadway musical wends its way to the Ohio Theatre with an impressive heritage: the material originated as a novel Sara Gruen. It then was fodder for a movie starring Reese Witherspoon, and finally, it became a musical thanks to the handiwork of the PigPen Theatre Co. No matter how it’s told, the story—about a man recollecting the time when he caught on with a circus—is sure to captivate. $25 to $158, capa.com
CAPA Summer Movie Series, June 18-Aug. 16
Who needs fresh air when the Ohio Theatre is showing classic movies all summer long? Among the vintage films to be shown during this year’s series are Casablanca (June 20-21), South Pacific (July 18-19) and two by Alfred Hitchcock: Family Plot (June 25-26) and To Catch a Thief (Aug. 8-9). More recent flicks include Spaceballs (June 24) and The Silence of the Lambs (July 17). $6, or $5 for senior citizens, students and children, capa.com
A Summer Abroad: International Film Classics July 9-Aug. 13
Ohio State University’s Wexner Center for the Arts will satisfy film fans and travel buffs alike with its latest series. Numerous world cinema classics will deliver audiences to various far-flung destinations, including Jamaica in The Harder They Come (July 10), France in Golden Eighties (July 25), and Japan in Akira Kurosawa’s masterpiece Ran (Aug. 13). Numerous titles will be presented in newly restored versions. wexarts.org
Sweeney Todd Sept. 24-Oct. 18
Stephen Sondheim’s Demon Barber will relocate from Fleet Street to the Garden Theater in the Short North Stage’s production of the inimitably macabre musical. As memorable as the props, including knives and meat pies, is the music, including the standards A Little Priest and The Worst Pies in London. $43.35 to $98.80, shortnorthstage.org
This story appeared in the June 2026 issue of Columbus Monthly as part of the Summer Entertainment Guide feature package. Subscribe here.
This article originally appeared on Columbus Monthly: Artist Mandi Caskey Reimagines the Mona Lisa on Columbus’ Moxy Hotel
Reporting by Peter Tonguette, Columbus Monthly / Columbus Monthly
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