Adria R. WalkerRochester Democrat and Chronicle August 24, 2021

Rochesterians officially gained another mural at 11 a.m. Tuesday.

Painted by artist Kyle Holbrook, the new mural, called “Peace Rochester,” is at the corner of Greenleaf Street & Atlantic Avenue.

Because Holbrook doesn’t live in Rochester, he was not here for its official unveiling. He says that he is based in Pittsburgh and Miami, though he’s currently on the next stop of the mural tour. Still, as he has family in Rochester, he says he’s familiar with the city.

“I’ve always gone once a year to Rochester, so it’s a place close to home for me,” he said.

“Peace Rochester” is part of a nationwide tour in which Holbrook is traveling from state to state, painting a mural in an attempt to prevent gun violence. For Holbrook, who has 45 friends who have died from gun violence, it’s personal. After the mourning period, he says, people need to find an outlet to distract themselves from the grief. For Holbrook, that outlet is murals.

He’s painting the murals across the country to show that gun violence is occurring everywhere.

“I don’t know if people really realize the extent of how (gun violence) is going on in every single city,” he said. “People might think it’s regional, but everywhere I go there has just been a shooting … I really wanted to do something that would connect all the cities so everyone could see, so it would be understood that this is something going on all across the country.”

He selects the cities for two reasons: first, they have a burgeoning or flourishing art scene; second, they are a community dealing with an uptick of violence.

Twenty-two years ago, Holbrook was interning at his local Boys and Girls Club. He was commissioned to do a mural, and many of the kids with whom he worked were eager to help. This is when Holbrook understood the transformative power of art.

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“It was nighttime, like 9:30, 10 o’clock on a Friday, and I had all these teenagers painting,” he said. “They were asking me stuff about life and stuff beyond just the art, that’s when I saw an impact I make through the art, so I started a nonprofit and that’s what I’ve been doing for 22 years now.”

For “Peace Rochester,” Holbrook didn’t work with local artists, though he did intentionally choose a location that was already teeming with murals.

“The group ‘Wall Therapy’ does murals there. When you do work of public art in close proximity to other works of public art or other murals, it makes the visibility of it more. People may take selfies or pictures of the other murals and then it maximizes the visibility of this mural,” he said.

Though the painting of the 7-by-2-foot mural only took about an hour and a half, Holbrook hopes the message is long lasting. He painted it to be reminiscent of Banksy, he said, allowing the art to speak for itself. The orange, he said, is for gun violence awareness. The mural tour is sponsored by Moving the Lives of Kids Community Mural Project (MLK Mural).

Adria R. Walker covers public education for the Democrat and Chronicle in partnership with Report for America. Follow her on Twitter at @adriawalkr or send her an email at arwalker@gannett.com. You can support her work with a tax-deductible donation to Report for America.

Adria R. WalkerRochester Democrat and Chronicle

A changing landscape

The nature of public art is that they regularly change, even when in sanctioned places.

In Atlanta, for instance, Krog Street Tunnel, a short underpass that connects Cabbagetown and Inman Park, two Atlanta neighborhoods, has been covered with rapidly changing street art since the 1960s. The concrete walls of the underpass are a kaleidoscope of images and words — there one day, gone the next.  Old work is covered by new work and the cycle continues.

Krog Street Tunnel is a reminder of how essential it is to document a mural if you see it in passing — because it might not be there when you return.

Such is the nature of public art, graffiti and murals, even in Rochester.

On Aug 24, Kyle Holbrook, a muralist who is traveling across all 50 states to promote a message of ending gun violence, unveiled the Rochester addition to his patchwork of peace. It was painted over about a week later to allow “Mother” to be completed.

In an interview with the Democrat and Chronicle, Holbrook said that he chose the space because of its proximity to WALL\THERAPY’s works.

“The group ‘Wall Therapy’ does murals there,” he said at the time. “When you do work of public art in close proximity to other works of public art or other murals, it makes the visibility of it more. People may take selfies or pictures of the other murals and then it maximizes the visibility of this mural.”

Now Holbrook’s mural is gone, but it becomes part of Rochester’s changing mural scene.