PUBLIC ART IN #TORONTO: A RAILWAY UNDERPASS

The other day I was hiking along the Don River and saw a young man slapping white paint on the graffiti that covered the wall of a railway underpass. A man offended by the proliferation of graffiti, doing a public service, I thought. When I returned the same way, I realized he had just been making room for his own graffiti. He looked Latino. He sported a gold chain around his neck and a tattoo on his chest advertising “La vida loca”. I started talking with him.

“Bomy”? I asked, pointing at the letters he had painted on the wall. “What does that mean?”

“That’s my nickname,” he said. “Because I drink a lot and then I vomit. So they call me Bomy.”

(B and V are pronounced similarly in Latin American Spanish).