New York graffiti artist paints ‘El Paso Strong’ mural in central city

El Paso Strong murals have been popping up across the city since the tragic shooting on Aug. 3.

Now, a new mural now sits on the corner of Stanton and Schuster in Central El Paso, but the artist is not from El Paso.

Adam Kiyoshi Fujita, known as AdamFu on Instagram, is a well-known graffiti artist that lives in New York.

“I’m a big fan of his work and im always sending messages about when he does murals about how cool it is,” said El Pasoan Alejandro Navarro.

Navarro has been following Adam on Instagram for years now. After Adam posted a picture of a mural on his Instagram, Navarro decided to message him personally to ask how much he would charge to do a mural in El Paso. Adam replied saying his cost for murals ranges from 10 to 15-thousand dollars.

“My reply was, man if I had the money I would book you to come down here and do a mural for my city.” said Navarro.

To his surprise, thousands of dollars were not needed for the well-known graffiti artist to come down to paint a mural in El Paso.

“He said about El Paso that his wife is from San Antonio so they had a connection to Texas and were really sad for what happened to our city, and he said the best thing he could do for El Paso is to come down and do a mural for free,” said Navarro.

Adam asked Navarro was to find a wall, get permission and a permit from the city and the rest would be taken care of.

The wall that Navarro found is located at the corner of Schuster and Stanton St. According to the city, it belongs to the owner of the home that sits right above it so Navarro had to ask the homeowner for permission to draw the mural on their wall.

“So I went and talked to them, they were excited,” said Navarro.

Alejandro received the permit from the city and Home Depot also donated paint for the project.

Adam is known for his one worded murals.

“His main concept is always about wording. Words that actually have a profound impact on everything he does,” said Navarro.

Adam spent all of Monday afternoon in the hot El Paso sun completing the mural which read, “United.” Right besides that word read the phrase, “A people united can never be divided. #ElPasoStrong.”

For Navarro, having one of his favorite graffiti artists fly down to El Paso to share his art with the city was something he was proud of.

“I’m really proud of my city, and I can’t thank everybody enough for how we’ve come together after this tragedy.”