“I lost friends to gun violence from when I was a teen to recently,” Holbrook, a longtime artist, said during a phone interview Wednesday from his Miami home.

Holbrook, a muralist and activist, is on a nationwide tour to use his artistic abilities to promote stopping such violence and striving for peace. One of his works is prominently displayed on the former Park Inn building, 2622 Glenwood Ave., on the South Side.

Such violence has increased in Miami, Youngstown and many other parts of the country, said Holbrook, who has been to 39 states so far.

The 336-square-foot Mural to End Gun Violence project in Youngstown’s Idora neighborhood was in response to the spate of recent shootings that have plagued many city neighborhoods in recent months. It shows a large hand in front of a rollercoaster-shaped pink backdrop forming a peace sign next to a stop sign that reads, “Stop gun violence.”

Holbrook also is the executive director and chief executive officer of an organization called Moving the Lives of Kids Mural Project. MLK is a youth entity that brings mural works to predominantly black neighborhoods throughout the U.S. and overseas. It also uses grant money to pay its youth participants.

Holbrook noted that the underlying reason for the tour is to “draw attention to this being a problem all over America.”

The uptick in gun violence also has caused some people to become desensitized to the problem, he continued.

Holbrook was exposed to gang violence while growing up in Wilkinsburg, near Pittsburgh. His upbringing also inspired Holbrook to use local teens for many of his public murals, the first ones of which he painted in the Pittsburgh area.

In 2002, Holbrook earned a degree in graphic design from the Art Institute of Pittsburgh.

“I’ve always wanted to be an artist,” said Holbrook, whose parents were educators and his father was a guidance counselor for at-risk youth.

Many of the murals he’s painted on the tour display variations of the peace sign and are similar to the local artwork, he continued.

Holbrook added he wants his projects to stand out and serve as a message about the harmful effects of gun violence. A contributor is that many young people are growing up without fathers, too many of whom are incarcerated, he observed.

It is hoped the murals also will serve to inspire others to work toward finding solutions to the problem, said Holbrook, who has family in Youngstown.

news@vindy.com

New South Side Mural Has Message of Stopping Gun Violence

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – A new mural on a South Side building is taking aim at gun violence.

The simplistic piece of art on the former Park Inn building, 2262 Glenwood Ave., is the work of Kyle Holbrook, a Florida-based artist and muralist who grew up in violence-plagued Wilkinsburg borough on the edge of Pittsburgh. Holbrook claims that more than 40 of his friends have been killed by gun violence.

The 14-by-24-foot mural depicts a hand giving the peace sign over an abstract background with a stylized stop sign that reads “Stop gun violence.”

It is part of Holbrook’s Moving the Lives of Kids mural project.

Holbrook, who could not be reached for comment, founded the program in 2002 as a public arts organization and has painted more than 500 murals in roughly 100 U.S. cities and several countries. More than 7,000 children have been involved in the murals.

The idea for the project came to the artist when he was working with children at a Boy’s and Girl’s Clubs in Wilkinsburg, painting a mural, according to his website. 

“Since I grew up in the neighborhood, I knew a lot of the other kids who were passing by,” he stated. “They started crowding around: ‘Hey Mr. Kyle, can I help?’ At one point I paused and thought, ‘Look at all these kids who could be out doing all kinds of stuff, getting into trouble, and here they are, painting.’”

His vision is to use public art to reach kids over the summer months to do positive community work when they are not in school. 

Like many cities in the country, Youngstown is experiencing a spike in gun violence. There have been 22 gun killings in the city so far this year and 99 people shot, both surpassing last year’s totals. In August alone, there have been 25 shootings.

Two killings on the West Side Tuesday night have not yet been ruled homicide.

Last week, eight people were shot in a South Side disturbance that took two lives, including that of a 10-year-old girl.

Katrina Love has lived in the Fosterville neighborhood – where the new mural is located – since 1972 and has been captain of Fosterville Block Watch since 1996.

“I’m so happy and pleased to see this mural,” she said, while admiring the artwork Wednesday morning. “It’s beautiful. Love, peace and happiness is my motto.”

Love and her group were holding Freedom Fest on Saturday in the neighborhood and witnessed a shooting that took place on Glenwood Avenue after the event ended. “All of the kids ran over to the playground to be with us,” she said.

Love said she is troubled by the rash of gun violence in the city.

“It saddens my heart to know that people cannot solve their issues in a peaceful manner,” she said. “It just saddens my heart and I just pray and pray every day for us to have peace.”

Copyright 2022 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.

‘Life ... always imitates art’ | Mural brings message of peace to Youngstown amid deadly shootings BY JUSTIN DENNIS

Read more at: https://www.mahoningmatters.com/news/local/article262313982.html#storylink=cpy

YOUNGSTOWN — Along Glenwood Avenue is a message of peace, mere blocks from the scenes of at least three city shootings this year — one of which was fatal. A new mural depicting fingers splayed in a "peace" sign and reading "Stop gun violence," painted by international artist Kyle Holbrook, is set to be unveiled at 11 a.m. today at 2622 Glenwood Ave. It's part of Holbrook's 50-state tour, using street art to spread awareness of increasing gun violence nationwide. "You think of it as something regional. … But every city in America's talking about that right now. This is an epidemic going on in the country," said Holbrook, who resides in Miami and Pittsburgh, and whose relatives live in Youngstown. TOP ARTICLES Top Articles Who are the #Gentleminions? TikToktrend has theaters canceling shows,banning teens "I think the more people that realize that this gun violence is going on around the country, the more people will be thinking about solutions." The city's first reported fatal shooting this year happened nine minutes after midnight on Jan. 1 just a couple blocks south of the Glenwood Avenue business whose side is now adorned by Holbrook's mural. As of Tuesday, there have been 21 homicides so far this year and nearly 100 people shot, WKBN reported. One non-fatal shooting was just a block away from Holbrook's mural on Saturday night, according to WKBN. And in May, another non-fatal shooting in front of a playground near the mural caused a vehicle to crash into a building, the TV station reported. Holbrook, too, has grown up surrounded by gun violence, punctuated by numerous funerals between his teens and his forties. He said 45 of his close friends since childhood have been murdered with guns. "I have several uncles who are war veterans. One of them fought in Vietnam. He knows [fewer] friends than I do that have been murdered," Holbrook said. "This is right here in America." Shooting victims and their killers are getting younger, Holbrook has found. One of Holbrook's mentors is Rashad Byrdsong, a community advocate well-known for heading anti-violence initiatives in Pittsburgh's East End, and whose 15-year-old grandson Jafar Brooks was shot and killed in December, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported. Byrdsong, who in the past worked to mediate between violent gangs, is now using the tragedy to "dig in even more" and expand his outreach programs, Holbrook said. Gun violence is a plague of generations, Holbrook thinks. Explosive gang violence in the late 1980s and early 1990s led to a generation of boys growing up without father figures or male mentors, who instead found them in modern rap entertainers, who are "talking about shooting in almost every song," Holbrook said. "Life, to a certain degree, always imitates art," he said. Gang culture was also part of the social fabric of his youth, Holbrook added. "In high school, when there was gangs, you can't even be popular unless you're in a gang. Girls like the 'bad boys,'" he said. "There's some type of social infrastructure that makes it cool. "And once you realize — once you lose someone — that it's not cool, at that point then, it's too late. Now it's, 'This person has killed someone close to you and you want to retaliate.'" For his part, Holbrook's organization, Moving the Lives of Kids Community Mural Project, which is funding his cross-country mural tour, offers education, employment opportunities and outlets for idle youth, he said. Holbrook's murals can be found in 28 states and 43 countries, he said. As of 2019, more than 45,000 men and women have been involved in the organization, according to its website, MLKMural.com. And he's planning a return to Youngstown to work with local youth, artists and educators. Holbrook said he hopes his contemporary street art — similar in style to popular British street artist Banksy — can serve as memorials to those killed by gun violence. After years of suppressing his own grief, the art has become a form of therapy — a way to deal with his personal losses, he said. The medium itself has grown in popularity since the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police last summer, and with help from art-centric social media platforms like Instagram, he said. Some of the public murals he painted 20 years ago are still there today, he said. Physical, public art is also able to cut through the media noise — the kind of incessant messaging on not just gun violence, but all pressing social issues, that Holbrook said he feels cause us to become desensitized. "People have been realizing the power of public art. It's not like TV or radio where you can just turn it off and switch to another channel," Holbrook said. "The messages you portray in a work of public art are gonna' be visible. "They can make a lasting impression and still get a message across."

Read more at: https://www.mahoningmatters.com/news/local/article262313982.html#storylink=cpy