Artist Monet Kifner has been tapped to create the artwork that will be proudly displayed on the sides of a number of NFTA-Metro buses. The artist’s work, titled, “Black Excellence: Told By the Graces” pays tribute to Black History Month, as well as the ongoing accomplishments of Black people despite ongoing adversity and hardships.
“I chose to focus on a plethora of what I see to be black excellence today, to explore this theme I wanted to use the Three Graces from Greek mythology. The Graces, represent Creativity, Good Will and Beauty” said Kifner. For creativity I chose to focus on music. Black contributions to music touch my life, I wanted to clearly show Duke Ellington and the godmother of rock and roll, Sister Rosetta Sharpe. To illustrate good will I depicted figures from our history (MLK, President Obama) that have made major contributions in not only the betterment of the black community but for our country and the advancement of equity for our communities. Finally, I wanted to represent black beauty via the black woman.”
Seeing artwork on the sides of buses is a welcome change from the typical in-your-face advertisements. Now, if we can only do the same thing with billboards that litter our landscape, mostly depicting the faces of creepy, ambulance-chasing lawyers… now that would really be something.
“We welcome this opportunity to collaborate with NFTA-Metro on this community project and congratulate our winner, Monet Kifner,” said artist John Baker, of the WNY-Urban Arts Collective. “Thank you to all the talented artists that submitted inspirational designs, your participation was gratefully appreciated.”