Leaving graffiti on artwork shows 'bitter reality' of racism in Canada, artist says

A street artist who had his artwork defaced with racist graffiti during the Cambridge International Street Art Festival on the weekend says he never even considered painting over the words.

• Possible hate crime at Cambridge International Street Art Festival

He left the words "f--- you n-----" on the piece and walked away from it because he said people in the community needed to see that it happened.

"The residents that were there at the time and who I spoke to early in the morning, said to 'get rid of it, paint over it, don't let the guy win,' but I could see in them, I could tell by the way they were saying it that they didn't want, and one of them said, 'Kids and parents are going to see this,'" Evond Blake, who works under the pseudonym Mediah, told CBC Radio Toronto's Metro Morning Wednesday.

"It's a bitter reality that people don't want to deal with and I think their suggesting that I paint over it would be to sort of hide it and get rid of it so the public don't have to be confronted or hit by what was written or what was done."

'Serious intent and dedication'

Blake said he was invited to take part in the festival and on Saturday, he started a piece along the banks of the river.

"My pieces are always based on something spiritual in nature so it doesn't have a literal depiction of anything. It's basically really dynamic, it has a bit of abstraction, geometric and a little bit of an engineering base to the way it looks so it really had no political, cultural or any kind of reference point to it. It was just basically teals and grey and I just started to work into it and I wanted to unleash my creativity and do something epic there," he said.

We cannot keep pretending that racism is not an issue. We cannot keep sweeping it underneath the carpet or keeping this veil of a pretty face that Canada doesn't do that, because it does.- Visual artist Mediah

It started to rain and there was even a tornado warning, so the artists packed up and decided to start again in the morning.

Blake arrived at 7:30 a.m. Sunday to find the vandalism.

"The first thing I did was, I took a look to see if anybody else's pieces were touched with that can of paint. Nobody else's pieces were touched with that can of paint," Blake said.

Given the rainy weather the night before, and the location of his artwork on the side of the river, the vandal "really showed serious intent and dedication to make sure that the message got out," said Blake. 

Police investigating

Police have said they are investigating the graffiti on Blake's artwork as a possible hate crime.

"[It] does have some hate crime connotations to it," Waterloo Regional Police spokeswoman Alana Russell said. Investigators continue to look for witnesses who may have seen something at the riverfront in Galt late Saturday.

Festival manager Brian Price was not immediately available to comment to CBC News. He told the Cambridge Times he contacted police and said he had no doubt the graffiti was "premeditated."

"He was the only black man there as an artist and it was his panel," Price told the newspaper. "Somebody had to know it was a black guy working on that panel."

Price told the paper he had suggested Blake cover it up.

"It was not an effort to cover up the fact there was racism. It was an effort to not let [the vandals] win," he said.

Artist annoyed by graffiti

Blake said he had to walk away from his original piece because "the spirit abandoned it because of what somebody wrote on it."

He said he was invited by other artists to collaborate on another piece, which he did.

People came up to him as he worked Sunday and apologized, many saying they hoped he didn't think the racist graffiti represented the way everyone in Cambridge feels.

After he posted about the graffiti on Facebook, he received more apologies, but also comments from people upset with Blake for not covering up the vandalism.

"The one thing that post is doing is that, no matter what, people's true colours are coming out," he said.

"We cannot keep pretending that racism is not an issue. We cannot keep sweeping it underneath the carpet or keeping this veil of a pretty face that Canada doesn't do that, because it does, he added.

"I want people to really, really understand this: I'm not hurt. My feelings are not hurt. The community's feelings got hurt because of the truth of what was revealed. No one wants to believe that this is what's in their community, even if it's a small minority. Their feelings are hurt. I'm annoyed."