What started as a beautification project has new meaning under the 45th US President.

Brian Boucher, July 31, 2017

Enrique Chiu and friend. Photo courtesy the artist.

The largest outdoor mural in the world, according to the Guinness Book of World Records, is at the Pueblo Levee, in Colorado, and it measures two miles long and 58 feet tall. That record would be blown away by a mural that Mexican artist Enrique Chiu wants to paint.

The artist is hoping to create a work that stretches the entire length of Donald Trump’s proposed border wall along the US-Mexico border, which is nearly 2,000 miles in length. The mural would be an extension of his current project decorating the existing border wall, which he started at his home in Tijuana.

Enrique Chiu’s border wall mural. Photo courtesy the artist.

“The wall is rusty and dirty,” Chiu said in a phone interview. “They never do maintenance. I wanted to beautify it to give something back to the community.”

Chiu is creating the artwork along with visitors from around the world—2,300 and counting—many of whom heard about the project from a Univision segment. Long before that, the “Mural of Brotherhood” started with an invitation from a group called Border’s Angels, which helps people emigrating to the US, to create a small mural.

Enrique Chiu’s border wall mural. Photo courtesy the artist.

A similar invite came from Dreamer’s Moms, and then one from Friendship Park, which straddles the border. Each new invite expanded the mural, as Chiu painted new sections of the wall. Another site he has painted is La Casa del Tunel, the arts center he oversees in a building sited on the border. It once served as cover for a tunnel used for narcotrafficking.

The imagery on the mural includes two hands reaching for each other accompanied by doves, lots of flowers, areas of pure blue intended to merge with the blue of the sky, and, of course, slogans like “no walls.”

Trump’s proposed border wall inched one step closer to reality on July 27, when the House of Representatives approved a $790 billion package of spending bills, including $1.57 billion for a border wall. The spending package now goes to the Senate, where it is expected to face stiff opposition from Democrats, whose votes will be needed to pass it.

While the expanded border wall is not yet a certainty, Chiu says he is ready regardless. “If Trump gives me a canvas,” he said, “I will paint it.”