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BRUSSELS. — Brussels added to its large collection of murals on Thursday with a newly commissioned work in memory of African-American George Floyd, whose killing by police has sparked global protests against racism and police violence.
Belgian-Congolese street artist NovaDead, whose real name is Julien Crevaels, completed the work in just over a week in a suburb near the canal that crosses the Belgian capital.
The mural on a street corner, stretching across two buildings, features the face of Floyd, some scenes of nature and two hands clasping a rose.
“For me this picture could be a reminder of the absurdity, as I see it, of racism and the absurdity of such violence over the difference of colour,” Crevaels told Reuters TV.
The Black Lives Matter protests have extended to Belgium and sparked calls for statues of King Leopold II to be removed. The king is known for his brutal colonial rule in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1885-1908.
There are flecks of vivid pink, purple and orange on the face of Floyd but generally grey, a colour city resident Crevaels says he uses in all his depictions of people, whatever their races. — Reuters.
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