It’s everywhere you look in downtown Phoenix. Vibrant, unique, inspiring, and it can tell a story without using any words. It’s the heart of the Roosevelt Row Arts District, and it’s created by muralists with just paint, a brush and a vision. It’s art.
From the Black Lives Matter Movement to immigration issues, art in downtown Phoenix has had an important role in bringing to light the changes that need to be addressed.
For decades, local artists have used their talents to voice their personal thoughts, sparking conversations and leading the way towards change.
Giovanni ‘Just’ Dixon
Dixon, a first-generation Jamaican American-born muralist, first realized his passion for art back in 2018.
Before creating impactful art on the walls of Phoenix, Dixon started out as a football player. It was a childhood dream of his, but in 2013 he decided it was time for him to go another route. At the age of 23, Dixon began on a path towards self-discovery and in 2018, he found himself in art.
“My process is still very much in its development stage so I can’t break that down if I wanted to. I just enjoy creating because it’s the one place I have complete control in this life,” Dixon said.
The artist fully realized his passion for paving a path towards change in the world through art, after a collaboration with artists Thomas Evans aka “Detour” and Hiero Viega on a Breonna Taylor memorial mural in June 2020.
After the death of George Floyd, Dixon decided to become a full-time artist, quitting his job as a construction worker and devoting all his time to making murals that would bring awareness and spark conversations. His art embodies the passion he has towards activism and protest and tells the stories of the voices that are seldom heard.
The Black Lives Matter movement was first founded in 2013 after the acquittal of Trayvon Martin’s murderer, with a goal to eliminate white supremacy and stop violence against Black communities.
Since then, the movement has gained a large number of supporters and attention on a global scale, as the deaths of Black lives have continued to increase. Fatal police shootings amongst Black Americans have been much higher than any other ethnicity, with 33 fatal shootings per million of the population as of November 2020, according to Statista.
Alongside this, Black men are approximately 2.5 times more likely to be killed by police over the course of their lives than are white men, and Black women are 1.4 times more likely to be killed by police than are white women, according to the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.
The Black Lives Matter Mural created by Dixon and artists John ‘MDMN’ Moody, Nyla Lee, Muta Santiago, Clyde, and Ashley Macias aims to bring more awareness to the unjust killings of Black lives in America.
“This past summer was heavily influenced by the revolution in hopes that I can create black art for black kids to feel inspired and appreciated I guess, and also to create those tough conversations that need to happen,” Dixon said. “Stop killing us, we just wanna be able to walk around without a high level of fear like white people do.”
Jeremie ‘Bacpac’ Franko
With a blank wall as her canvas, and an organized idea for her painting, Jeremie ‘Bacpac’ Franko expresses her thoughts on society anytime she gets in Phoenix. Franko has made a name for herself from painting murals and set backdrops for major clients to being a guitarist on the European punk-band, The Raincoats, from 1977 to 1979. The motorcycle enthusiast is not only in the art scene but also DJ’s on the side.
Franko says the only way for people to hear your voice is to “directly hit them” with art so that everyone can stop and see. A painting on Oak and 15th streets, a wall which is mostly centered around family-oriented murals had a change of scenery when Franko got her hands on the wall and turned the space into her own political statement.
“The Price of Black Lives” embodies the situation that sparked a fire of social injustice within America, as George Floyd was murdered by police for a supposed counterfeit $20 bill.
“I kept hearing that no one, I kept.. I was not hearing the whole story, I would listen to people talk about what had happened to George Floyd, but I would never hear the whole story. The story about the $20 bill, I heard it once and I never heard it again,” Franko said. “So that was the inspiration, and I felt that the story had to get out, and how it’s different… it’s different because to do public artwork, where I’m making a statement from me, it’s not commissioned, nobody’s paying me to do it, I have to find a wall, a public wall and make it visible.”
She says that they don’t rely on media coverage, because they typically stray away from political content. Although the coverage would make her business boom, she says that she doesn’t need it to express her art, but rather go straight to the public, “it has to be visible.”
“…Everybody comes up the I-10 whether you are a gardener and you’re a gay person going up to Melrose or you’re a rich homeowner with a million-dollar house in the wild district, that message is there, it’s not like the channel you pick to watch, you cannot ignore public art, which is why it’s important to express it,” Franko said.
“When you’re an artist, you have to (be inspired). I’m a very public person, and I have this way to communicate without having to be there, I just put up a mural… It starts a conversation while you’re there painting, everybody slows down and they want to talk. The inspiration is passion and no fear.”
Ashley Macias
Ashley Macias, a fluid artist also centered in downtown Phoenix has received much of her inspiration from human psychology and psychedelia.
Psychedelic art consists of visual displays heavily influenced by the work made by artists under the influence of Lysergic acid diethylamide, or LSD, in the 1960s and ’70s., according to Tate.org. This type of art usually includes swirling patterns, provocative imagery and underlying themes. Prime examples of this type of art in pop culture include artwork done for blockbuster names such as Jimi Hendrix.
In her art, Macias makes it a goal to create more visionary work that she hopes will send a more positive message for the future. Her LGBTQ/Trans Queer Pueblo Lives Matter collaboration with the Black Lives Matter mural on 3rd St. and Roosevelt aims to send a message of unity.
“I just wanted to pay tribute to the things we’re fighting for as a community but also as people,” Macias said. “So, the piece is just inspired by protest. It’s a protest of the things that wish to oppress us.”
A collaboration amongst multiple artists, the Black Lives Matter mural holds the same message, but in differing ways.
“Different talents and people of the same beliefs came together and used their platforms to spread a message so that we can bring people together and hopefully make for a better future,” Macias said.
Hugo Medina
Born in La Paz, Bolivia, Hugo Medina has been inspired by his experiences and those of others as immigrants moving to the United States for the first time. His life in the U.S. first started when he was around 7, coming here on a visitor’s visa that eventually ran out, leaving the family undocumented until they were granted amnesty.
It’s because of his experience that Medina says that displaying social movements like immigration through art is important.
“Being an immigrant, it’s something I’ve lived and experienced and I think it’s important to share the different perspectives, different ideas, different thoughts, start different conversations about it,” Medina said. “That’s my childhood. When we got amnesty, I was able to become a legal alien, which allowed me to eventually go to college and do what I do today.”
One mural titled, “#never again”, by Medina, addresses the news that shed light on Mexican children being kept in cages and the controversial occurrences that have happened at the border. In the mural, the crying face of a young girl is displayed as the American flag turns into bars, representing the cages keeping children separated from their families. A white face with blue eyes can be seen above her, which Medina painted for two reasons.
“Latinos, Latinx, Hispanics, immigrants, whatever label you want to give us, we are not all brown. We are white with blue/green eyes, black, and yes various shades of brown. Society and the media just represent us as brown,” Medina said. “The second reason is that if people saw a white, blue-eyed kid behind bars instead of just brown kids, I hope it would make them think that we are all human, we are all the same, except for the color of our skin.”
Medina’s art reflects not just immigration, but humanity and the everyday struggle of the working class around the world. His art aims to portray the complex feelings of society and connect everyone on a broader level, making it a visionary masterpiece for people to talk about. Medina shares his art through his website, hugosart.com and with the hashtag, #hugosArt, making it easier for people to find his creations.
“Creating murals that have a social conscience, when people walk by it, they’ll stop, they’ll think and then start a conversation, whether it’s good or bad or whether we like it or not, still, they can’t not see it.”
Contact the reporters at ecaro1@asu.edu and jipalom1@asu.edu.
