Railroad history comes alive in new Oxford County mural

A local artist has been commissioned to paint a mural on a building in Ingersoll. CTV London’s Bryan Bicknell checks it out.

It’s a sun-soaked day in the Oxford County, Ont. community of Ingersoll.

Next to the train tracks, with a cement wall as his canvas, an artist works meticulously. Every stroke a labour of love.

“But when you do with love, it’s something inside you,” explained Yasmany Risco Barbón, his English spoken with a thick Spanish accent.

“You feel, and then you do. Doesn’t matter how much if the space is bigger. The first is how you feel inside you, for you do, and people see,” he said, pointing to his heart.

An artist and designer, Risco Barbón emigrated to Canada from Cuba three years ago to be with his wife, Tina Lichti of Woodstock Ontario.

“Every day I’m proud of him. He shows me something new every single day,” said Lichti.

He’s putting final touches on his latest work. It’s a steam engine, painted on the outside walls of a former mill, which is now part of Ingersoll Rails House of Brews, a local brewery.

“I didn’t realize that he was going to make it multi-dimensional, so to speak. But if you look at that at the right angle, it looks like a train that’s just traveling through, and the corner disappears,” exclaimed brewery co-owner Craig Rathburn.

At 39 years old, Risco Barbón has been an artist his entire life, working in several different media. But it was only after he came to Canada that he began to get noticed for his work doing murals.

In the spring of 2025, he painted a mural at the Colonial Hotel in Grand Bend, Ontario. That led to a series of murals at the historic inn. He admits having to get used to working on a such a large, immovable surface.

“This job is more big. This is something that’s hard for many artists. It’s so big, when you close you see something, then you move, ‘wow’. It’s so hard. It’s so hard,” he said.

The mural was commissioned by Ingersoll Rails. The goal is to blend the beauty of art with the community’s history, said Rathburn.

“Well, the steam train, it goes back to the rail history of Ingersoll, and the mural is just a way of making a cement block building look like something spectacular,” he said.

“I believe this country have beautiful story. When I do this job, it’s one story for people, not forget,” said Risco Barbón.

And now he’s leaving his own mark, and telling his own story for people to remember.

“When I see in my mind something, and then I do, I like to see people, they feel happy. So, this is incredible for me. I feel I do good job,” he said with a smile across his face.