[Music] I'd like to open with a story of something that happened to my mom two and a half years ago that left a big impact in me she was at a peaceful protest where thousands had gathered and she was leaving down a side street at the end of which she and the few people around her who were ambushed by the armed National Guard a single canister of tear gas releases enough smoke to blind you and suffocate you and the last thing she saw before being enveloped by the gas were four or five of these bombs
landing at her feet so completely blinded with her skin burning and with no air to breathe she ran and she was able to escape but later that day we learned that a twenty-year-old student was killed in that same ambush from a direct impact to the chest of one of these canisters he was one of many who died in the protests of the summer of 2017 in Caracas Venezuela where I was born and raised and where my mom lives as scary as this story is it is by no means uncommon it's been repeated countless times by
hundreds of people Venezuelans have been protesting against the authoritarian government for twenty years and it is often met with violent repression the quality of life has worsened dramatically food and medicine is often scarce water shortages and power outages are normal Street gang violence abounds and hyperinflation has been in place since 2016 in a country where speaking out against your government can earn you a life sentence and where elections are not free or fair anymore Street protesting is one of the last remaining avenues that Venezuelans have for freedom of speech I went to visit Caracas a
few months after my mom story took place and I saw in the city the physical marks that this last bout of protesting had left and one of these marks shocked me it was the graffiti now Caracas has always been a victim to the cyber vandalism but the messages that growing up were Pro Revolution were now anti-government everywhere I went in underpasses highways and cul-de-sacs I saw messages demanding liberty denouncing the government as a dictatorship and calling out to Venezuelans to continue the resistance messages of truth that the government control media doesn't share among these messages
I found the piece of public art that left the biggest impression on me in a busy sector of the city there was a printed billboard of a woman promoting a national beverage that had been vandalized the words to either side of her read I'm hungry and over her face somebody spray-painted banana when Venezuelans go out to protest they always bring a bandana a handkerchief with them that they coat with sodium bicarbonate and they wrap around their mouths to protect against a tear gas it's a homemade gas mask what an amazing transparent message and what a
powerful way to share it revealing not just the truth of a country but the resilience of a people art is a universal language through which people from different countries and different backgrounds can understand each other and connect with each other street art is a unique branch of this language because of how relevant it can be to a location and how many people it can reach with its message I've been an artist for a long time I was classically trained in at realistic oil painting as a teenager but I consider myself almost Media artists I find
myself with in many different styles and mediums my first brush with public art came two years ago when I was tasked with creating a mural for an up-and-coming brewery in downtown Pensacola this business was inspired by a piece of history something that happened here in Pensacola around 200 years ago in 1821 President Andrew Jackson and his wife Rachel Jackson came to Pensacola around this time Florida was being handed to the US by Spain and during her stay Rachel wrote a letter to a friend describing in awe the beauty of the city I was asked to
paint her portrait so inspired by her letter and by the location of this mural I started carving out hot flowers from linoleum blocks to stamp the whole portrait and then together with sibling to represent yeast and barley I created her face out of the dry ingredients of most of the beers out there I hit an American flag and a Spanish flag in there as a nod to what was going on historically and but there's a secret element there is an element of transparency that is only revealed by her expression as she's looking down at the
bar she doesn't look necessarily happy it turns out Rachel Jackson did not approve of drinking so she wouldn't be happy she wouldn't be happy that I made her out of hops but this gives the mural and element of accuracy so that viewers can not just learn about this amazing piece of history but also of the personality of a historical character I learned that murals can be windows to a different time and also to a different place I was down in Miami and I painted the storefront of an authentic Mexican tortilla factory the owner wanted to
share a piece of her culture through her business so together we started coming up with popular cultural icons from Mexico this research was incredible because it's a country that's given me many good friends and through the research I found how many of these icons share with my culture the end result is not unlike a coloring book waiting to be filled in every time a passerby walks by they find something new and will people from this culture see it they are hopefully reminded of home I believe that art is successful when the message resonates with you
whether it's a commission or your own message the first mural where I was given I was not given any guidelines was a Pensacola Beach at an RV resort there was a fence right by the water and I was just asked to paint something beautiful so the message was my own but I still wanted to paint something that felt like it belongs in this environment right next to the water and the white sand surrounded by this lively beach ambience I knew I wanted to paint an animal that was local and that perhaps goes a little unnoticed
or under appreciated it didn't take me too long to find that my protagonist the ghost crab they are native to Pensacola Beach and I was fascinated when I learned that they changed their color to match their surroundings and I was just captivated by the name ghost crab so I set about creating oops offense that would be colorful and that would hopefully highlight these animals in a different way transparency in this mural became a visual theme instead of just an inner concept it seemed like a match made in heaven because there goes crabs they're bright and
colorful during the day and at night they glow thank you fainting this this wall was a community experience for me being at ground level allowed for a level of interaction I hadn't had before every day I would get these amazing interruptions and distractions people would come up to me and ask to take pictures and ask questions kids would just run up and be about to plant their hands on fresh paint uh-huh older retired couples would come out of their RV and offer me tequila shots all of these amazing these interactions that you have to love
because that's the energy that goes into the painting which I find appropriate because public art doesn't belong to you you can't take it with you to your next exhibition it belongs to the surface it's painted on and to the people that see it every day it becomes part of the community and public art is so powerful that it can even change the fabric of a community there is a city in the island of Sardinia in Italy called Otto go solo and the city was once known as the village of murderers because of the high crime
rate in the 60s a group of artists started painting a mural as a form of protests and then another one followed and then another one until murals were everywhere it is nowadays a unesco world heritage site street art changed what this place was known for from a place of violence to a place of art even in a place as chaotic as Venezuela public art is being used for a greater purpose there is a nonprofit organization where volunteers go to poor and forgotten about in marginalized communities and they engage with the children there and teach them
about urban design and architecture and together they pick a spot in their neighborhood where they clean up they plant trees and together create a mural on a wall what this does is it creates a sense of identity a sense of pride in your neighborhood and in your country despite the so parallel to the powerful defiant messages of the graffiti you get equally powerful messages of a desire for change and of hope that change will be there soon this past summer I painted the largest mural I've done to date it was once again in downtown Pensacola
and I wanted to paint a mural about this city about how I see Pensacola through my eyes and how beautiful I find that I left Venezuela when I was 15 years old in search of better circumstances by 19 I had already lived in 3 different continents I've been in large cities like Miami and Madrid and as an immigrant you always keep your home your birthplace in your heart but as you start living in these other places you leave little pieces of your heart there and they do become second homes to you I've been in Pensacola
for five years now and this plays welcomed me with open arms and allowed me to pursue my passion and find purpose in it as I was creating the imagery for this mural I would walk around town and I would pick up wild flowers and weeds plans that are probably a nuisance for landscapers and I would take them home and study each petal and each leaf I wanted to paint an animal again this time one that would represent Pensacola and I chose the red throated hummingbird native to this area hummingbirds carry a lot of symbolism but
the piece of information that made me choose it is that hummingbirds are the smallest of birds but relatively speaking they have the biggest hearts out of every animal every leaf petal and the feather is painted in a transparent individual way every flower is painted in a single color the one that was the most vivid from its petals and the bird is painted out of every color of every flower and it's chess is opened to his surroundings I believe there is value in stopping and appreciating your surroundings the smallest leaf or pebble is amazing once you
take the time to look at it I believe that this deep appreciation can lead to a profound sense of gratitude and that can in turn increase happiness art breeds out what it breathes in public art is of a place and for a place and its message is transparent in nature even if it starts as a single person's perspective it resonates with the people around them and it ends up belonging to them it's a shared visual experience uncontained by the walls of a museum of a gallery but the true magic of public art lies in its
message a message that has the power to touch and inspire and unite people from different cultures and different backgrounds whether it's a message of protest or hope or beauty or even a message of gratitude thank you [Applause] [Music] you
