Tolerance

This wall is one of our first Masterpieces that brought fame and recognition to Neiuw-West of Amsterdam. Street Art Utopia blog had picked it up and over night, we had over 2,000 shares and 7,000 likes.
This is a portrait of Dianne, breastfeeding 3 months old Thyrisa. Both ladies are representative of our neighbourhood, our culture, our society. Thyrisa is reaching out to one of the 7 snakes. 7 because it's a lucky number, snakes because it was a year of the dragon and because Dianne had them living at her house at the time, snakes and kids because sometimes when it gets really hot (35 degrees) the kids wear snakes on their necks and take them for a walk.
The road to one's dreams is never easy, hence the blood on the finger and thorns raising up to sun and water, to new life.
New life is represented by the group of residents on her crown and the empty walls of our ambition. From the right to the left: Turkish society that helped us to fix electricity and the lift, Oma and Kevin who had literally adopted the artist and our crew, me and my boyfriend Ricardo - I was looking after Artist and Ricardo was looking after me, Alaniz - self portrait, Dianne's boyfriend El Theo and all of their kids, plus some kids from the neighbourhood who played at the wall every day.
Tolerance is sturdily embedded in Sloterplas lake and surrounded by the lillies. “Tulip is Turkish and is grown around Den Haag. Sunflower has also very little to do with Amsterdam. Your flower is LILLY.” said Alaniz.
Total budget for the wall came from the EigenWijks residents initiative and was 1,500e. The lift ate 1,600. We had to add our own money to buy paint, therefore despite colourful composition, there is very little colour used during production. Alaniz mixed his own paint and only worked with brushes and rollers.