Japanese artist’s towering mural in N.Y. calls for road safety

Jiji Press

12:56 JST, September 5, 2022

NEW YORK (Jiji Press) — A mural drawn by a Japanese artist on a building by a road with heavy traffic near the U.N. headquarters in New York is calling for the prevention of traffic accidents.

Artworks of Dragon76, a 45-year-old New York-based artist, usually feature the coexistence of races and other groups. The United Nations highly evaluates and supports his creations as part of efforts to achieve its Sustainable Development Goals.

His mural in New York, titled “Road Safety,” is about 480 square meters and depicts a near future in which a driver and two pedestrians are using the road safely.

It took Dragon76 about a week to finish the mural, which includes a message calling for people not to drink and drive.

This is his second SDG-related project after the mural he created in Houston last year, for hunger eradication. The previous mural is 15 meters tall and 76 meters long and is more than twice the size of the New York mural.

“The United Nations trusts my thought about coexistence,” Dragon76 said.

Born in 1976, the Year of the Dragon in the 12-year Chinese zodiac cycle, in Hino, Shiga Prefecture, Dragon76 worked as a freelance artist in the country until 2016, when he moved to New York and started a career as a mural artist.

“I want to draw murals with positive messages across the world,” he said. “I also want to draw on aircraft and dam walls.”