Joerael on the Streets of Juarez, Mexico

Joerael working with panels of his new piece. (© Dayvid Lemmon) Juarez, Mexico

In the quiet everyday moments of this sister city to El Paso, Juárez can seem small and provincial, where neighbors share stories about sports teams or new babies or an upcoming Quinceañer while walking up the sidewalk or standing around in the corner Farmacia. Other days in the last couple of years find residents afraid and hidden as this dusty border city has become marred by the crossfire of a violent drug war that no one has found a solution to yet.

Street Artist Joerael spent some time in Juárez recently working with local friends to put up a few new pieces of Street Art just outside the industrial sector of town where international companies operate factories for goods exportable to the U.S. In these images you can get a feeling for the small town within the city, nestled between las colonias (the neighborhoods) named Ignacio Ramos and Colinas Del Norte, street art is a family affair. Joereal put up a complicated paper stencil of symbolic icons combining Mexican tradition, native history, cubist shapes, and storytelling to address the corrosive effect on the psyche here. Whether specific commentary on the local situation or a more general observation of human’s incredible capacity for denying uncomfortable truths, Joereal is laboring to be heard.