Vandals have defaced a well-known West Dallas mural created 5 years ago by Los Angeles-based contemporary artist Shepard Fairey.
The mural is a part of a larger display by several artists at the corner of Fort Worth Avenue and Sylan Avenue on an embankment below the Belmont Hotel.
Hotel Manager Milan Djordjevic said graffiti including a curse word and homophobic slur first appeared Nov. 24. He said the hotel washed that off and then black paint appeared on the mural on Nov, 30.
Collin Decker who works at the Juiceland juice bar across Sylan Avenue in the Sylvan 30 development said the latest vandalism appeared overnight. Decker said customers have been talking it.
“This is a bigger statement because it affects the whole community,” Decker said. “It’s unfortunate. That's something people see every day and it was really disappointing, knowing the name of the artist and who he's been and had a statement for in the United States.”
Shepard Fairey is known for renderings of Barack Obama and for launching the Obey clothing line.
He completed the West Dallas mural in 2012 and has done other murals around Dallas and in other cities.
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The hotel manager said he is working the Dallas Contemporary Museum on how to repair the mural.
Efforts to reach Fairey were unsuccessful Tuesday.
