In Sao Paulo, Brazil, quarterbacks Jalen Hurts and Jordan Love are hard to miss. Their faces are prominently displayed on a 108-foot-high mural on the side of a downtown building.
They will go head-to-head on Friday night when Hurts’ Philadelphia Eagles play against Love’s Green Bay Packers. This will be the first NFL game in Brazil, a country with an estimated 38 million American football fans.
Graffiti artist Crica Monteiro, who has more than 20 years of experience, worked with six other artists to create the massive mural. It was commissioned by the NFL in collaboration with local company Dionisio AG. The team spent 11 days on the mural, finishing it late Tuesday.
Monteiro’s team was asked to incorporate a Sao Paulo touch into the mural.
Known for its dense urban environment, often described as a concrete jungle, Sao Paulo’s colors were represented with orange, red, and yellow to evoke the tropics, while the city’s grey sidewalks were depicted beneath the players.
“I mostly do graffitis of Black women, so it was totally unexpected to do this,” Monteiro told The Associated Press by phone. “These two are interesting people.
What I brought was not to put them against each other. I wanted to capture the subtlety of their expressions. My characters always have a deep look.”
Monteiro said her interest in American football grew after learning about former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who started kneeling during the national anthem in 2016 to protest police brutality and racial injustice.
“American football is in a position of defiance for me, and so is NBA basketball. When I thought about Hurts and Love up there, I thought of two Black men playing their own game and trying to win,” the artist said.
Another large mural, part of the same project, covers a different building in Sao Paulo. Artist Bruno Big painted Eagles and Packers players competing for the ball against a blue backdrop.
