Photos: MILWAUKEE CBS 58 screenshots with inset
Jeremy Novy, who grew up in Milwaukee, is known for his koi fish paintings, which appear in public spaces across the city and around the world.
In October, Novy painted several rainbow-colored koi fish on sidewalks near rainbow crosswalks he also designed — part of a broader response to efforts by the Trump administration to eliminate rainbow crosswalks and other so-called “political” street art.
Recently, several of Novy’s koi paintings were defaced with anti-gay graffiti.
Novy, who first stenciled a koi fish near the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee while attending art school 20 years ago, told Milwaukee CBS affiliate WDJT that much of his street art is about “creating queer visibility and a visual safe space for my community.”
At the same time he was helping install the rainbow crosswalks and rainbow koi fish in Milwaukee’s Walker’s Point neighborhood, a homeowner in the city’s Downer Woods neighborhood asked him to paint koi on her sidewalk.
“She really wanted them to be something for everybody — people in the neighborhood, people passing by,” Novy told WDJT. “Just to bring them a little moment of joy.”
The koi fish, painted in black, orange, and white with shadowing that made them appear to float above the sidewalk, were installed outside the homeowner’s residence. But recently, someone covered the fish with black paint.
Novy and the homeowner initially assumed the fish had been painted over by someone who mistakenly believed they were graffiti, so he repainted them over the weekend. But a day later, the fish were defaced again, with someone scribbling over them in bright green paint and scrawling the anti-gay slur “F*g” beside them.
Novy said he found the graffiti shocking, noting that none of his other artwork had previously been vandalized. He said the attack felt personal because he is gay and the slur appeared to target him directly.
Dana Alexander Kaleta, a nearby resident, called the graffiti “upsetting.”
“Someone’s clearly hurting. Someone really has a lot of anger, and that’s kind of what we don’t need right now,” Kaleta said, adding that the neighborhood is generally accepting.
Novy is puzzled by the vandalism, noting that the artwork contains no political or social messaging.
“They’re just the black, orange and white koi. They don’t actually have rainbow coloring in them,” he said. “There’s nothing around them that signifies a nod to my community, the queer community.”
Novy said he and the homeowner are trying to find a way to prevent future vandalism, but there’s only so much they can do.
“With public art, you really can’t control who interacts with it,” Novy said. “You just hope the person is nice and having a good day.”
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