A massive outdoor mural recently completed by internationally renowned artist Brian Kenny to honor LGBTQ community leaders is turning heads in Upper South Providence. The image stands tall on the wall of Open Door Health, Rhode Island’s first LGBTQ health care center, which literally opened its doors just before the pandemic.
The mural has a personal meaning for the Brooklyn-based artist, as Kenny told the Boston Globe: “I’m a patient of an LGBT health clinic in New York myself. I understand the value of getting medical attention suited to queer people, who understand who you are, and can help you without bias.”
Reports the Globe:
The 1,700-square-foot mural, painted in blue, pink and white, echoes the colors of the trans flag.
“This part of our community needs the most visibility. If I can celebrate [Trans people] as large as possible, that’s what I’ll do,” Kenny told the Globe in a recent interview.
The piece features truly Rhode Island symbols and icons representing “transformation,” such as blue violets (the state flower), butterflies, and sea life such as coral, octopus tentacles, and starfish. Snakes wrap around body parts and in places where there would have been open space to symbolize “knowledge and divine feminine energy,” said Kenny. One striking element is that of classic Lady Liberty —depicted as a man.
There are 15 faces drawn throughout the mural, many of them prominent Rhode Islanders, including Richie DeFilippo, an Open Door Health board member who is the 2021 winner of Mr. Gay World Rhode Island, and Chris Harris, a concert promoter and co-owner of Providence’s Club EGO, who died after a battle with cancer in early 2019 at the age of 51.
Elle Moxley, founder and executive director of the The Marsha P. Johnson Institute and co-founding member of Black Lives Matter Network, is also featured prominently, as is Cristina Hayworth, an activist during the 1969 Stonewall riots who lead the first Puerto Rican pride parade in the early 1990s. Local artists and Avenue Concept staffers are also featured.
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