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Artists Use Street Murals to Change Image of Violent Caracas Slum

Reuters

   CARACAS - In the sprawling slum of Petare in the east of Venezuela's
   capital of Caracas, 31-year-old Fabian Solymar begins sketching a mural
   of abstract figures on a wall filled with Socialist Party political
   propaganda.

   The mural will eventually cover up a campaign ad for a state governor
   and an image of the eyes of late President Hugo Chavez, an artistic
   response to the ruling party's iconography scattered across public
   spaces in the struggling OPEC nation.

   The pastel-colored mural is also meant to change the image of Petare,
   one of Latin America's largest slums and one that has historically been
   better known for violent crime and gang rivalries than for public art.

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