A new Toronto mural is turning a street in Yorkville into a colourful message against racial violence.

On Bellair Street, between Yorkville Avenue and Cumberland, American artist Nina Chanel Abney has wrapped up her latest piece titled “Generally Speaking.”

Ashley McKenzie-Barnes

The long, bright Toronto mural features colourful faces, hands, hearts, and other shapes, along with the words “Stop,” “Don’t kill,” and “Love” to underscore the message of anti-racial violence.

This is Abney’s first piece of art to be shown publicly in Canada, and it represents the need for “justice against racial, cultural, and gender-based violence, discrimination hate crimes, abuses of authority, and wrongful displacements across nations,” according to a press release.

Ashley McKenzie-Barnes

The mural was curated by Ashley McKenzie-Barnes, a professor of visual and digital arts and Humber College, in partnership with Yorkville Murals for ArtworxTO.

“As the city begins its recovery on the tail end of a global pandemic and the urgency for social justice and reform, the project animates and transforms the Yorkville neighbourhood by injecting sentiments of joy and hope through a bold and colourful piece that challenges the status quo,” McKenzie-Barnes said.

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“Asking pedestrians to ‘stop’ for a moment of consideration on how we can embark on a communal process of healing, through art and intentional contemplation.”

This isn’t Abney’s first work in this vein. In 2015, she sold a painting for $990,000 of two Black cops arresting a white man.