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Dominican artist paints 29-story mural on a Bronx NYCHA building
ReDominican artist paints 29-story mural on a Bronx NYCHA building
A Dominican artist has completed what is described as the tallest mural in the United States, a 29-story work covering a brutalist public housing facade in the South Bronx after more than a year of community workshops.
A Dominican artist has completed what is described as the tallest mural in the United States, a 29-story painting that now covers the facade of a brutalist building in the Morrisania section of the South Bronx. The work, titled «Un MAR de Gente / From Every Shore», stands about 307 feet tall and transforms a stretch of plain concrete on a New York City Housing Authority campus into a large-scale public artwork.
The mural was painted by Néstor Omar García, who works under the name Angurria. The project was organized by the nonprofit ArtBridge together with the consulting firm FOGA, and it was funded by the Public Housing Community Fund and MAC Viva Glam. The effort spanned a little over a year, with much of that time devoted to listening to the people who live in the buildings around it.
Before any paint went on the wall, the project team held six community workshops that shaped the theme, palette and symbols of the piece. Residents voted on key decisions, including the choice of artist, the colors and the motifs that would appear on the wall. Among the ideas that made it into the design were references to hip-hop and sports, two elements closely tied to the neighborhood's cultural life.
Three artists worked on the wall in total, but the painting itself took 22 days and relied on a scaffolding lift to reach the upper sections. Because projecting a design onto a surface of that size was not feasible, the team used a virtual reality headset to trace the composition onto the facade. The outline alone took about one full day. The surface was then built up in layers of acrylic and latex, with spray paint used for finer details.
The mural's central figure, known as «Doña Patria», is based on the artist's mother. The composition is divided into three sections. The top shows knowledge being passed from one generation to the next, the middle depicts a block party, and the bottom shows children gathered around a fire hydrant, a familiar sight on city streets in summer. Residents who contributed ideas during the workshops have said they are proud to see those ideas now displayed at such a scale.
García's work was embraced by the local community over the course of the project. Neighbors celebrated his birthday while he was painting, a sign of the relationships that formed between the artist and the residents who watched the piece take shape. For a building that had long been defined by its bare concrete, the mural now offers a visible statement about the neighborhood and the people who live there.
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Source: How the country’s tallest mural was painted onto the side of this NYC building