Searching for a graffiti artist's name and images of his '80s-'90s work

Post date: 2020-08-03 23:48:22

I'm helping a friend who is on a team trying to save a historically significant mural in a building that University of San Francisco intends to demolish. One of their ideas is a symbol for their website, literature (and graffiti?) done in the style of an artist doing stenciled graffiti she remembers from either the 1980s or 90s.

The work was usually the head of a political figure and one or two words (such as "Lie") below it. The image of the person's head looked like an over-exposed photo. The artist of this image clearly was influenced by the work she remembers. My friend is looking for the work of the artist who started the concept.

The mural

Why is the mural significant? Because of who it depicts, how it depicts her, and that the scene was pre-Civil War. Biddy Mason was born a slave, then became a freedwoman in Los Angeles during 1856. She was a nurse and a healer. This quote is from an Op-Ed in the Los Angeles Times (behind a paywall) titled 'Black history that needs saving':

"What makes the mural unique is its composition. Mason occupies center stage. She's surrounded by a group of white men - soldiers, patients, doctors, city officials - but she's not subordinate to them. Rather, she tends to the patient directly as a medical authority in her own right. Zakheim depicts Mason as she was: a healing presence and a pillar of early Los Angeles."

Part of being a pillar included both co-founding the Los Angeles First African Methodist Episcopal Church, and donating the land for it.

Please click Here to read the full story.