A three-story mural of Ruth Bader Ginsburg in the East Village is the latest artwork memorializing and honoring the late justice and New York native.
Street artist Elle—her alias, which means "she" in French—started working four days ago on the massive, colorful portrait of Justice Ginsburg, who died weeks ahead of the presidential election of pancreatic cancer at 87 years old. The mural is in-progress at First Avenue and 11th Street in Manhattan.
"Ruth was such a force of nature and such an amazing figure," Elle told us. "She was this fearless warrior just fighting for equal opportunity and and women's rights in America. She was such an important figure in making what I do possible, and what a lot of women in this country do possible."
The mural brings together various images of RBG, brought together in one collage—similar to Elle's other works, but different in that she typically doesn't do portraits of specific women. "Because she was a Brooklyn native, it's going to have the Brooklyn Bridge in the background," Elle added.
"It's super colorful and vibrant and obviously she's the main part of that," she said.
The wall is where the artist Shepard Fairey had previously painted "RISE ABOVE," a portrait of a girl with a dove resting on her hands. Fairey's East Village mural underwent wear-and-tear from a busted pipe at the building and the northwest exposure, according to Lisa Project NYC, the non-profit that prepped the wall for Elle's piece with tens of thousands of dollars of work to remove the previous mural. IntoAction, an artist initiative that's a part of Los Angeles-based creative agency TaskForce, was also a partner on Elle's latest work, in addition to the HOPE poster.
Elle, who's from California but lived in NYC for the better part of a decade, says she'll be working on the mural for the next two weeks. "She deserves a massive wall in New York," Elle added.
Ginsburg is expected to be honored with a statue in Brooklyn, and Mayor Bill de Blasio recently approved renaming the Brooklyn Municipal Building after her. A subway artist recently honored her by reworking mosaic tiles at the 50th St. subway stop to read Ruth St.
Hundreds of people gathered for vigils in NYC in the wake of her death in September.
