A batch of beautifully painted, graffiti-style murals popped up along St. Claude Avenue in Faubourg Marigny a few months back. They’re part of a New York couple's epic attempt to produce large-scale aerosol artworks in all 50 states.
The pair, who go by the pseudonyms Menace and Resa, declined to share their real names. In the process of traveling “we want to meet all the cool people and see America from all different angles,” said Menace by phone on Tuesday. “All the parts of America are so distinct,” he added.
So far, the partners agreed, no part has been quite as distinct as New Orleans. If you ever forget how wonderfully quirky our city can be, just talk to Menace and Resa. They fell in love with the place. Hard.
New York graffiti artists Resa and Menace in New Orleans during Carnival 2024.
The adventuresome couple pulled their converted shuttle bus into a lot off Pauger Street in the new year, and stayed through Mardi Gras. A local friend named Jins showed them the ropes. Menace said they “kind of” got permission to apply their talents to a blank wall and a couple of wooden fences, then got to work.
Their first piece was a masterful portrait of trumpet maestro Louis Armstrong, tangled with the word jazz in glinting purple lettering. Then they painted some cartoon alligators cavorting amid elaborate tags. As they worked, they said, local graffiti writers and muralists “pulled up” on them to offer encouragement, and sometime to collaborate.
Menace and Resa are both from Queens. Resa is a bona fide, college-trained artist, who interned at the world-renowned Christie's Auction house, and worked for one of the premier collectors of surrealist art in the world.
New York graffiti artists Menace and Resa hope to paint elaborate murals in all 50 states. They collaborated with local writers to add elaborate tags to their murals.
Menace went to Krylon University. That is to say, he grew up tagging the neighborhood masonry. In the school he attended, he said, “you didn’t NOT do graffiti.”
The only thing either one of them ever wanted to do was make art, they said. When the couple paints together, Resa handles everything “God made,” as Menace puts it — all the people and creatures. Menace does the background cityscapes, lettering and such.
They are both swift, wildly skilled, but utterly disciplined. Few folks can handle a spray can better.
New York graffiti artists Menace and Resa's work, blends into the St. Claude Avenue streetscape.
Menace and Resa’s business model is always a gamble. They pull into a new city, find a conspicuous spot and paint a mural. Or two. Or more. Hopefully somewhere along the line somebody stops by and says, “Hey, I have a restaurant, can you come paint.”
They say that’s just what happened in New Orleans. They got hired to paint at Rosella restaurant on Cortez Street in Mid-City.
In the meanwhile, they experienced Carnival, which was a revelation. “In New York, parades are an inconvenience,” Menace said. In New Orleans, he discovered, they are a constant. “We got a parade today, we got a parade tomorrow,” he gushed. “They’re partying all the time!”
Menace and Resa said that among the 13 states they’ve visited so far, a certain sameness can set in. But New Orleans, Menace said, “was the exact opposite of a cookie cutter place.”
New York graffiti artists Menace and Resa painted this 'Mid-City' mural on the wall of Rosella restaurant on S. Cortez Street.
Menace said he knows that it’s a cliché, but “I’ve never been to a more magical city. There’s something in the air.”
The couple said they loved the food and “the people running around randomly in costumes.” Though they did find the sound of gunfire in the night a touch troubling. In New York, one does occasionally hear gunshots, Resa said, “But in New Orleans, you hear it almost every night.”
Of course, for street artists, a degree of unruliness can be a plus.
“I know lawlessness is bad,” Menace said, “but for what we do, it’s like Disneyland.”
Speaking of lawlessness: Someone defaced the mural that Menace and Resa painted on an empty storefront on St. Bernard Avenue near North Derbigny Street. That’s just part of the street art game, of course.
New York graffiti artists Menace and Resa's St. Bernard Avenue mural was tagged over.
On Tuesday, the nomadic artists were in Missouri, on their way to St. Louis, having left their mark on Kansas City. KC, they observed, "seemed really proud of their baseball history, and really enjoyed sports in general."
But, they wrote via text, "we're not really sports people, so it didn't interest us that much." Otherwise, they wrote, "the city itself, we felt, lacked culture."
Maybe, they mused, they just hadn't stayed long enough. Resa said that when they visit a state, they don’t have a set schedule. “If there’s a place we really don’t vibe with,” she said, they stay a week or two, or sometimes just long enough to complete one piece. When they really like a place, they stay a little longer.
They stayed in Kansas City for two weeks. They stayed in New Orleans for two months.
New York graffiti artists Menace and Resa painted this 'Mid-City' mural on the wall of Rosella restaurant on S. Cortez Street.
