The City as Canvas

The Worker Mural

Artist: Gaia

Medium: Paint

Location: 35 Republic Street

Street art and the city are in constant conversation. The art draws inspiration from the urban environment and comments on its surroundings. It calls out to the people who pass by every day—though not everyone chooses to listen. Some street art shouts angrily, while other art goes for laughs. And then there are works, like this mural, that seek to educate and uplift. 

An homage to the unsung working-class heroes who built the city, it belongs to a neighborhood that families like theirs still call home. Here, beside the train tracks that once delivered grain from America’s heartland, men still fill Buffalo’s silos.

The mural is also a testament to the perils of choosing the city as a canvas. Once part of a much larger tribute to Buffalo’s history, this is all that was left after a building collapse. Every year, dozens of works disappear beneath rubble. Art here on the streets is at the whim of the elements and the constant churn of capitalism.