Prolific South African street artist, Faith47 recently painted a four-storey high mural of a multiracial couple embracing. Situated on Berry Street in Williamsburg, NYC, the artwork is titled Lay Your Weapons Down.
The spur-of-the moment wall was inspired by Faith’s ongoing photographic series of couples kissing on the dance floor in Evol nightclub in Cape Town. “The mural speaks to the notion of home not being a place, but a feeling of human interconnectedness,” says Faith, who’s been traveling most of the year for work.
The couple’s faces are obscured, leaving the exact nature of their intimate moment to the audience’s imagination. Typically for Faith, the piece has multiple meanings for the artist too; “It’s about the profound nature of connectedness between two people; the fragility of human emotion and the power of touch; the breaking down of race; as well as the need for humans to abandon violent behaviour and find strength within our vulnerability.”