Kareem Ameen was walking to a barber shop when he got a text message from a photographer friend Monday, asking him to come say hello outside the Lyndon Baines Johnson Apartments at Main Street and Humboldt Parkway.
“I saw the crane and thought they needed to put something up here, that’s cool,” Ameen said as he approached a 10-story mural now filling the southeast facade.
The Buffalo AKG Art Museum has commissioned a massive mural that will cover the east wall of the Buffalo Municipal Housing Authority’s 10-story Lyndon B. Johnson Apartments.
Then the neighborhood resident saw something else as he got closer: himself.
Unbeknownst to him, artist Aaron Li-Hill included Ameen in the mural of people who live in the apartments and nearby neighborhood, using photos taken by photographer Patrick Cray.
“More than being on the wall, to be considered, to be thought about, is a blessing,” Ameen said, still stunned to see himself with the likenesses of several others and feeling the weight of the recognition. “It makes me want to be better and keep working on myself.”
The mural by Li-Hill, publicly unveiled to the LBJ community Monday, will be completed Wednesday, Li-Hill’s 12th and last day of painting.
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