Massive Mural Aims To 'Empower Women' At West Village High School

WEST VILLAGE, NY —Argentinian street artist Magda Love partnered with students at a West Village high school to paint a vibrant mural towering five stories.

High schoolers at City-As-School — a public school that integrates hands-on internships with classes — collaborated with Love to design the 20,000 square-foot mural on the side of their W. Houston Street school near Varick Street. After more than two years of cutting through red tape to obtain the proper permits for the project, Love completed the massive mural last week.

"The concept was to really think about empowering diversity and how students manage to integrate and bloom together even if we come from all different places," said Love, who was recently featured in a Red Bull documentary series that showcases the mural and her role at City-As-School.

"I really wanted to focus on creating an image that celebrates feminine energy and to inspire the students to really go for it and make your dreams come true."

The vivid mural centers on a young woman surrounded by the natural world and encourages viewers to "pause, embrace their emotion and connect with others," according to Love.

Much of the Brooklyn-based artist's work focuses on women and empowering monitories, including her work with women who were rescued from sex trafficking in Cambodia, a project on an Apache reservation in the U.S. and she is planning to travel to Greece to paint a mural with Syrian refugees.

Love began working with City-As-School a few years ago when she met a student who encouraged her to collaborate with the West Village institution, which counts Jean-Michel Basquiat among its alumni. She began teaching workshops and mentoring pupils and raised the idea of painting the mural on the school when she spotted the ideal blank canvas, she said.

"I saw this monumental wall, and thought, 'Why don’t we paint the mural there?' It was a bit of madness at first, but it has been really meaningful," said the 39-year-old artist.

"Seeing the process really benefited the students, and I tell them even if you aren’t an artist to be able to solve things creatively is really important — you don’t have to be a painter to be a creative person."

Paintings wrap around the entire school including works by students and another multi-colored mural east of Love's by Brazilian artist Kobra.

Photos courtesy of Drew Gurian/Red Bull