I worked as a construction labourer, mixing cement and carrying bricks, until a knee injury made climbing scaffolding too risky. With no steady income and a lot of time on my hands, I started painting the peeling compound wall outside my own house — just to make the lane look less broken, nothing more ambitious than that.
Neighbours started asking me to paint theirs too, mostly for free at first, in exchange for tea and the occasional meal. I had never held a paintbrush before that first wall. I learned proportion and colour by copying calendar prints and film posters, mixing my own shades because I couldn’t afford branded paint.
It’s been six years. I’ve painted over forty walls across this city now, some of them for a proper fee, most still for whatever people can afford. My old construction site supervisor walked past one of my murals last year and didn’t recognise my name until he saw my face under it. I told him the knee injury was the best thing that ever happened to me, and I meant it.
Leave Your Footprint
"I lived this." "I relate." "My father was exactly like this." Say what this stirred in you.
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