Menace and Resa, two New York City street artists, were in Denver for the annual Crush Walls festival when word came on Friday that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had died.
“When RBG passed away, my close friends and I were extremely upset,” Menace and Resa, whose first names are Eric and Theresa (they declined to share their full names), said via Instagram. “I decided right then and there that I was going to paint a mural of RBG immediately. Menace and I are in Denver for (Crush Walls) right now. So we painted RBG over a mural we previously painted here three years ago.”
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The mural, located at 2150 Market St. in downtown Denver, depicts Ginsburg’s trademark steely gaze, delicate neck collar and fishnet gloves. The memorial also includes the symbols for both justice and feminism, a female gender symbol with a fist in the middle, and the word “ICON” beneath Ginsburg’s portrait.
In an Instagram post that has since garnered more than 2,000 likes, Menace and Resa shared their reasoning behind the mural, which took a full day to paint.
“She used her power in the Supreme Court to fight for gender equality, women’s interests, and civil rights and liberties,” the artists wrote. “She showed generations of Americans what it really looks like to be a strong woman. Now that she’s gone, the future of our country seems uncertain and at risk. It has a lot of us feeling uneasy. We must muster up the courage and continue her legacy by fighting for what is right and just.”
The artists — who go by @menaceresa on Instagram — were not official showcasing artists at this year’s Crush Walls, but they came to Denver during the fest and created “self-funded” murals in the parking lot at Larimer Lounge and another on the building housing the new Marine Layer store in RiNo. That mural, at 27th and Larimer, is still in progress, the artists said. But the RBG mural, while not in their original plans, holds particular significance for the artists.
“We think it is really important to pay tribute to the people who have made a real change in the world,” the artists said via Instagram message. “We are really glad that the people of Denver appreciate this mural.”
