Providence artist says Musk-funded mural removal stifled free speech

The Providence, Rhode Island artist commissioned to paint a mural of slain Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska said he feels his freedom of expression has been curtailed after left-wing backlash to the project caused it to be shut down.

“So, we installed the mural, and, as it started to evolve, the gay community spoke loudly about their displeasure that Elon Musk donated to the project, and that has reached a fever pitch, and the result is that the business owners have decided to remove the mural,” Ian Gaudreau, who was working on the project before its abrupt cancellation, told Fox News Digital

“I’m saddened by the fact that the mayor has called for the work to be removed before I was allowed to finish speaking,” he said. “I think that it is stifling my freedom of expression, my freedom of speech, and it’s unfortunate.”

On Aug. 22, Zarutska was stabbed to death in a random and unprovoked attack on a light rail train in Charlotte, North Carolina. Shocking surveillance video of the incident showed suspect Decarlos Brown Jr. allegedly stab Zarutska in the neck before calmly walking away as she bled out.

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The incident sparked a fierce political debate about criminal justice, as Brown had cycled through the criminal justice system for more than a decade, racking up 14 arrests and previously spending five years in prison.

Musk contributed $1 million to help fund a nationwide campaign of public murals depicting Zarutska.

Gaudreau explained that he wasn’t taking sides politically when he took the job painting the mural.

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“I think that some people are not able to view the work for what it is — for the work that I have done — because they’re allowing their disdain for Elon to cloud their judgment of the work as itself, because the work as itself is a response to the entire conversation,” he said.

He said he was incorporating symbolism into his work that was itself a critique of the political flashpoint caused by Zarutska’s death that he thinks overshadowed her memory.

“And in the painting, she sort of shines through that, despite this strangling effort. And that’s what I want to symbolize here, is that Iryna was a human being with a mother and father who are still with us and are still grieving.”

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Gaudreau also said his work was a response to how works of art depicting Zarutska, and their artists, have been treated. In early March, a mural of the young woman was defaced in Chicago.

“I’m making this work in reaction, post all of the conversation,” he said. “I have the benefit of being on the tail end of this project, in a sense, because I’ve seen how these murals have been treated in the past. I’ve seen that they’ve been defaced, I’ve seen my fellow artists get dragged through the mud for making the choice to paint her, and my work is a reaction to all of that.”

The mural was set to be displayed on the exterior of The Dark Lady, an LGBT bar in Providence.

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When the bar received blowback, it first defended itself from criticism, noting on Instagram that “Any of you who know us personally—even just for five minutes—realize the illicit intentions being portrayed here are completely false.”

As pressure mounted, the bar paused the project, and then later canceled it completely.

Amid the scrutiny, Providence’s Democrat Mayor Brett Smiley slammed the mural.

“The murder of the individual depicted in this mural was a devastating tragedy, but the misguided, isolating intent of those funding murals like the one across the country is divisive and does not represent Providence,” he said in a statement, later adding that he wants to “encourage our community to support local artists whose work brings us closer together rather than divide us.”

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He later doubled down in an interview with WPRI.

“I regret the state of where we are in politics today where absolutely everything is political and controversial and hard,” he said in the interview. “There’s nothing we should be doing to take away from the tragedy of the loss of life represented here, but then it was distorted by an erroneous tweet by our president and then a movement was funded by some right-wing billionaires, and it found its way to our community.”

“A private owner of a building decided to put a mural up that I don’t think he understood the full context of, and I was asked whether I thought it should come down, and I thought it should,” said Smiley. “I didn’t stifle anyone’s speech, it was his decision whether to continue with it or to take it down, but it certainly wasn’t bringing us together as a community. There was really angry protests on both sides, a lot of hate speech online, and so I don’t think we’re a stronger, more united community because of this mural, and so I thought the best thing to do was just to take it down.”