By MATT DEMIRS
The tune from the conch shell can’t be heard, but speaks volumes to the community it’s settled in.
“It’s building the vibe of mystic air and the action of calling the spirits,” muralist David “Don Rimx” Sepulveda said about his Beyond Walls entry.
The 36-year-old, San Juan, Puerto Rico artist said the portrait carried symbols from the Caribbean Islands, Africa, and the Latino culture: an Ecuadorian headband with distinct purple and orange coloring, a necklace with pigments representing the Yoruba religion, and a conch shell singing a new tune for the downtown.
Rimx, who admits to having little knowledge of Lynn before the festival, said he’s found nothing but comfort in an unfamiliar community as he put in 15-hour days painting.
“I feel like I’m home,” he said. “They treat me like that when they know I’m Puerto Rican.”
One resident brought his nephew to see live street art in action on the corner of Munroe and Washington Street and used it as a teachable moment to explain the process of large-scale graffiti installations.
“It’s great experience (for people) to see the process of a mural like this being done, instead of seeing it in the paper or on TV,” he said. “It shows them how many hours are put in, the materials used, the preparation, and the machinery needed.”
The same resident came back the next day with two other nephews to deliver the same lecture for eager ears.
Rimx said he realized he had artistic flair in the early days of elementary school. He grew up drawing but didn’t start painting murals until 1997.
While attending a specialized high school in Puerto Rico, he became inspired by a wall being transformed by graffiti artists from New York.
That’s about the time his curiosity for graffiti was born. He was drawn to the idea of people changing the landscape he saw on his daily walk to school.
He tried recreating the work by emulating those artists, and learned the craft through trial and error, as well as researching a variety of styles found in magazines at a time when the internet was still in its early days.
He remembered first discovering the different caps on spray paint cans used to create distinct line weight and thickness at a comic book store near his school.
It was the beginning of Rimx learning the multitude of tools at the hands of graffiti artists.
Since then, he has taken part in numerous national and international urban beautification projects from Miami, Florida, to the Urban National Museum for Urban Contemporary Art in Berlin, Germany.
Rimx, who looks up to the Dutch painter and printmaker Rembrandt, doesn’t just limit himself to street art and graffiti. He creates classical work, too.
There’s something special about the type of work graffiti and Beyond Walls is doing, that art in a gallery can’t accomplish, he said.
“Graffiti does something studio art can’t do,” he said. “When you bring art to the streets it stimulates the mind creatively, especially in a place where work like this is rare.”
Matt Demirs can be reached at [email protected].
