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 The mural will eventually cover up a campaign ad for a state
governor and an image of the eyes of late President Hugo Chavez,
an artistic response to the ruling party's iconography scattered
across public spaces in the struggling OPEC nation.
The pastel-colored mural is also meant to change the image of
Petare, one of Latin America's largest slums and one that has
historically been better known for violent crime and gang
rivalries than for public art.
"The idea is for people to feel that this is not a place of
delinquents, but of people who work," said Solymar, who goes by
the nickname Dagor, while working on a mural on a recent August
afternoon.
Solymar says he is inspired by Los Angeles-based street artist
Revok as well as late Venezuelan artist Carlos Cruz-Diez, who
used color and lines to create a sense of movement in his
pioneering artwork displayed in public areas in Caracas.
Venezuela has one of South America's highest homicide rates at
56.8 per 100,000 inhabitants, according to the United Nations -
and Petare's homicide rate is nearly twice that, according to
the non-profit Venezuelan Observatory of Violence.
Solymar is leading the initiative along with other artists and
Petare residents, who have so far painted nine murals in
Petare's hillside slums.
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They seek out walls filled with political propaganda, that are
located near places where people congregate, or in places where
garbage tends to pile up, in an effort to create a contrast with
bleak city realities.
They hope to paint a total of 14 murals, but do not have an
estimated date of completion due to the difficulties of paying for
materials, which the members of the group finance out of their own
pockets.
"This is not something done by a mayor or a governor but by people
here in the neighborhood," said community leader Katiuska Camargo,
41, shortly before asking a neighbor to lend her a broom so she
could sweep up trash strewn on the ground.
Pedro Key last year allowed the artists to paint the facade of his
house with abstract figures that still catch the eye of passersby.
"People are really impressed with the mural," said Key, 64, a
retiree. "You might not believe it, but art can help relax the
mind."
(Reporting by Shaylim Castro; writing by Brian Ellsworth; Editing by
Rosalba O'Brien)
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