Artist Promotes Peace on the Mexican Border Monica Ortiz Uribe - Fronteras Desk
go to original March 17, 2014

South African graffiti artist Gasak paints the face of Mother Teresa in a Juárez neighborhood. (Gasak)

A 23-year-old graffiti artist from South Africa is visiting the United States-Mexico border to do a mural project promoting peace. His goal is to inspire young people.

Anthony Kirkwood, whose artistic name is Gasak, started painting in high-crime neighborhoods in his native South Africa. There he saw how poverty and drugs wreaked havoc on young people. He himself was beaten and robbed while working outside a nightclub in Durban.

For his latest project, Gasak decided to come to the U.S.-Mexico border, where drug violence has taken thousands of lives in the last five years.
 
"I wanted to go where the heart of the drug war is," he said. "And I did a lot of research and I came up with Juárez and El Paso."

Outside the Juárez city hall on a recent afternoon, Gasak tested a bottle of gold spray paint. Not far from there he's painting the face of Nelson Mandela on a concrete culvert that separates the United States and Mexico. He plans to portray seven more inspirational leaders, including Pope Francis and Martin Luther King, in El Paso and Juárez.

"I wanna bring peace and awareness to this drug war," he said. "And the best way that I can do that is through my art."

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