If Kansas City Chiefs achieve Super Bowl ‘three-peat,’ this artist’s mural will rise

As artists go, this giant Kansas City Chiefs fan’s name might not be broadly known, but his giant, red, white and gold works — seen around the city by tens of thousands of people daily— certainly are.

They are building-sized Chiefs murals. And you probably have seen one, or two, as many as 10 of them.

And if — and it’s a big if here, so much so that 46-year-old muralist Phil “Sike Style” Shafer almost doesn’t want to jinx it by talking about it — but if the Chiefs in 2025, by act of fate and talent, somehow make history by winning a third Super Bowl in a row, he guarantees another of his murals will rise.

“I know that we don’t like to talk about what could happen,” Shafer said, his round face framed by a graying goatee and braids. Shafer sat recently in his Midtown studio with artist Holly Hayden, both his romantic and business partner at Sike Style Industries. “But when the inevitable-we-feel-like-it-could-happen happens, then there will be a giant mural for that.”

Ever since 2019, even before Kansas City Quarterback Patrick Mahomes won his first Super Bowl, Shafer has been working with the Chiefs and its partners to literally paint parts of the city red to celebrate the franchise’s success.

Painting the town

There’s the mural of Quarterback Patrick Mahomes in profile, his throwing arm cocked, painted on the side of the Westport Ale House, 4128 Broadway Blvd. Another can be seen on the Country Club Plaza, atop the former Jack Henry building, 612 W. 47th St., now Chiefs Fit.

The Chiefs Kingdom mural at Tom’s Town Distillery, 1701 Main St., is Shafer’s, as are the murals at 1808 Locust St, at the barber shop, Herringbone, 7337 W. 80th St. in Overland Park, and the ‘How ‘bout those Chiefs’ mural spread across a wall at 507 E. 18th St.

“One of the favorite things I’ve done: We repainted the sign on the side of the Chiefs’ practice facility,’ Shafer said. “We got a chance to redo it completely and we just added new numbers to it last year, which is, you know, quite an honor to say you got to do that.”

Chiefs murals are only part of Shafer’s portfolio.

A professional artists for 25-plus years, he was born in Brooklyn to urban missionaries and was 10 years old when his family moved to Kansas City to be closer to his mom’s relatives. His artist’s moniker, “Sike,” comes from his Brooklyn youth, he said, as in, “Yo, Phillip, your mama’s calling you! Sike!”

Shaker attended the Paseo Academy of Fine and Performing Arts and graduated in 2000 from the Kansas City Art Institute as a photographer and graphic artist. He worked for 18 years doing graphic design at the University of Kansas Medical Center.

Meanwhile, he always worked through the years on his own art, ranging from stickers to T-shirts to canvases to murals, with inspirations ranging from art deco to hip hop to issues of social justice. Each year, for free, Shafer, Hayden and friends create a mural at an area school to commemorate Martin Luther King Day. On Monday, he is scheduled to paint one at East High School.

He’s always been a Chiefs fan.

“Am I painting my face, or am I dressing up in costume? Not quite,” he said. This year, he attended every home game. “But do I live and breath it even in the off season? Yeah, I do.”

KC Royals and Taylor Swift

In 2015, the good fortune of another team, the Kansas City Royals, passed Shafer’s way. After the team won the American League Championship Series, but before the Royals won the World Series, he said, the organization commissioned him to paint a Royals mural in the service tunnel between Kauffman Stadium and Arrowhead Stadium.

“As a tribute,” he said, “to all the staff who worked their butts off to get the team to the World Series.”

Chiefs personnel saw the mural. A relationship was born between him, the Chiefs organization, Arrowhead and now even Oakley NFL as part of its Patrick Mahomes account. Sike Styles Industries supports the brand by creating artwork and specialty pieces that go with the launch of new Mahomes sunglasses.

No, Shafer has not met Mahomes, although he did briefly meet Brittany Mahomes when she helped spray a touch of paint on one of his murals.

But at Arrowhead, in the off-season, when huge music acts put on concerts, it’s Sike Styles that has also been tasked with creating custom-painted football helmet for stars including Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran, Billy Joel and Stevie Nicks. This year they also made them for the cast and crew of the Hallmark Channel’s television movie, “Holiday Touchdown: A Chiefs Love Story.”

For those wondering, the cost of mural: anywhere from $5,000 to $25,000 or more. Months of planning go into each. They tend to take about a week to finish — although one project, a 16,000-square-foot mural they completed at Lawrence High School in 2021 took four people four months.

“It was almost like 16 different murals in one,” Hayden said. “It went outside, then inside, outside, inside of the whole building. It was crazy. . . .although the planning always takes longer than the painting: designing it on the computer, talking to the client, going through approvals. I don’t think people realize that.

“I mean think of how many approvals are needed. like when everybody on the Mahomes team needs to look at it. Are all the logos on there? Some of them have no logos. Others have to have every little detail.”

The work has another added benefit.

“Have I paid for a Chiefs ticket in my entire Mahomes era? No,” Shafer said. “I mean, we figure out how to enjoy our lives.”