A 43-foot tall, 38-foot wide mural on the side of Downtown bar The Dark Lady shows an outline of a blond woman framed by blue geometric shapes. Just one eye is finished—the rest of the face remains a beige and blue outline. The bottom of the mural, in gold plated lettering, reads Iryna Zarutska, 2002-2025.
“Is this controversial?” said Chris Heroux, a contractor walking back from the Malted Barley to the Rhode Island Convention Center for a construction conference.
Heroux was unaware that in the two weeks since the mural was started, thousands of Providence residents railed against the painting as propaganda, the Mayor called for it to be taken down and the story made national headlines.
Across the parking lot, four figures over 50 feet tall watched silently—the drag kings and queens of Lauren YS’s “Empire Rising,” a mural painted in 2024 to commemorate the theater industry and LGBT communities that populated the city’s historic Chinatown.
The two murals represent two different approaches to curating public art, and the impact it can have on Providence.
Artist Ian Gaudreau decided to paint Iryna Zarutska a few months ago after the world’s richest-man, Elon Musk, donated $1 million to fund a campaign putting up murals of her across the United States, alongside other conservative donors like tech-CEO Eoghan McCabe and right-wing influencer Andrew Tate. “Empire Rising” was commissioned by the City of Providence for PVD Fest and curated by The Avenue Concept, a local non-profit responsible for over 300 public art projects in the Providence area.
Gaudreau’s work still hangs on a banner attached to the Dark Lady, but the piece will soon come down. As the controversy continues to loom over Providence, mural artists are reflecting on the importance of curating, researching and developing public art that brings people together instead of pushing them apart.
A View of Controversy, from Across the Parking Lot
“This is a perfect example of why curation matters,” said Nicholas Platzer, a founder of Conflux Art Projects and the former mural manager at The Avenue Concept. “Behind the scenes, we spend months and years planning, talking to every partner, talking to neighbors, talking to the city… To do this well, there’s so much planning that goes into all of these projects.”
Most murals of scale in Providence were curated by Platzer, including landmark projects like “Still Here” and “She Never Came” (which he also was the model for.) When the City of Providence wanted to commission a mural for PVD Fest in 2024, they asked The Avenue Concept to start scouting locations and researching local history to inspire the art.
The Avenue Concept team uncovered a rich history of a bustling entertainment industry operating in historic Chinatown along Empire Street and LGBT communities finding refuge in the area’s stores, theaters and dance floors.
Platzer, looking for an artist who could spray paint onto the rough brick of their selected location, recruited Lauren YS. The queer Asian-American artist previously painted a mural in Providence in 2016 while studying at Brown and RISD, but has painted murals across the world, from Yale University to New Zealand.
“I personally spoke to a lot of elders from the area. We had a lot of meetings, many, many revisions, and you can tell that there’s a lot of love and heart that went into that mural,” said Lauren YS, who met with Rodney Davis from RI Pride, retired Brown University professor John Eng-Wong and local researcher Jeffrey Yoo Warren. “It’s one of my most researched murals, and it really is a place maker for what used to be in that area.”
The result was “Empire Rising,” on Snow Street, opposite the Dark Lady and directly facing Gaudreau’s unfinished mural today.
The piece depicts LGBT figures inspired by: Perry Watkins, the first Black scenic designer on Broadway who comes from Providence; Francis “Auriema” Renault, a drag performer from Providence active in the early 1900s; local drag artist Ladda Nurv; and founding member of AIDS Project RI, Beatrice Temkin. Paolino Properties owns the building where the mural stands as well as The Beatrice, a luxury hotel named after Temkin.
The arches in the piece pay homage to the Chinese American restaurants and dancehalls where shoppers from Westminster would come for theater experiences. The Avenue Concept staff invited the building’s tenants, Charrette High School, to put lights in the windows to illuminate the mural’s lanterns at night.
While The Avenue Concept said the piece could be perceived as political, the mural was based on documented research and stories specific to Providence that they tried to share with the public before, during and after the mural’s installation.
“It’s ultimately not on you to control how the public perceives something, but you need to do your due diligence to inform them,” said Mica Bolotin, interim executive director of the Avenue Concept, which was not involved in the Zarutska painting and has never worked with the artist Ian Gaudreau. “There’s inconsistent messaging on their end, which is going to cause people to question legitimacy, question intention.”
The Dark Lady posted online that the mural was “never intended to be political,” and asserted they are Democrats who do not support Donald Trump.
Iryna Zarutska Campaign Among the Mural Community
The mural experts admitted the Zarutska campaign is a huge topic in the mural community, and many of them know artists who put up murals of her in other places. Lauren YS was approached to paint Iryna Zarutska in Los Angeles on a giant wall they would “love to have,” but turned down the project after researching its origins.
“To the layperson, it’s like, why would I say no to painting a beautiful portrait of a person who got unjustly murdered?” said Lauren YS. “But the far right is turning her into an alt-right symbol… The entire project itself is a racist dog whistle.”
Zarutska became a symbol for conservatives after video captured her being stabbed on a Charlotte train by Decarlos Brown Jr., who had a long criminal record and documented mental health issues. Donald Trump called her suspected killer an “animal” who deserves “the death penalty.” In October 2025, North Carolina adopted “Iryna’s Law,” which shortens the timeline for capital punishment appeals and removes rules that prevent the use of electrocution and lethal gas to execute prisoners.
Trump donor and tech CEO Eoghan McCabe pledged $500,000 in $10k grants to paint murals of Zarutska across the U.S. Musk offered to donate $1 million dollars, and Tate said he would match it. Over $100,000 was crowdfunded.
“I wouldn’t have heard about the project had Elon not made his donation,” said Gaudreau, a full-time artist living in Providence who considers himself “politically homeless” and not an activist. “Everybody thinks it’s a tragedy… Regardless of who funded or who paid money, it’s still Iryna, and she still has parents that are grieving.”
Gaudreau applied for the funding and pitched the mural to the Dark Lady owners Randy D’Antuono and Buck Asprinio. He knew the building held work in the past. On the same wall in 2015, Mary Beth Meehan hung a portrait for her “SeenUnseen” series. On the other side of the building, Amy Bartlett Wright’s “Three Waves for Coastway” was painted in 2013.
In February, funders told Gaudreau he had about four weeks to complete the piece, “so everything had to happen very fast.” But just as quickly as the piece went up, backlash appeared online. Comments said a local gay bar should not host the “propaganda” for far-right ideology, especially if the art has no connection to Providence.
“If I could do it all again, I probably would look for a different building than a gay club, because I didn’t realize how triggering Elon was to the gay community specifically,” said Gaudreau. Elon Musk has reversed protections on Twitter/X against anti-LGBT rhetoric and committed himself to “actively lobbying to criminalize” gender-affirming care for minors. Gaudreau continues, “It’s part of a nationwide conversation, and Providence, last time I checked, is part of the United States.”
Funding sources, and their agendas, are all factors that artists, curators and property owners consider in the mural commission process, said Sara Mintz, former manager of strategic partnerships at The Avenue Concept
“There’s often a process of collaboration and compromise around interests and where funding is coming from,” said Mintz, who is also a founder of Conflux Art Projects. “And if you get to a point where your integrity as a curator simply doesn’t dovetail with the project, you have to step away from it.”
Freedom of Speech in Public Art
In a social media post on Wednesday, The Dark Lady announced they are taking down the mural.
“We heard you PVD. We are deeply and sincerely sorry for everything that has taken place over the past week,” wrote The Dark Lady on Instagram. “We remain committed to fostering unity, safety, and care for all members of our community, and we will continue to listen, learn, and act with those values at the forefront.”
For his part, Gaudreau shared a petition to keep the mural up, and is open to relocating the piece to another location. He said the decision to take down the mural was made by the Dark Lady owners after feeling like their business (the couple also owns Friskie Fries) would suffer from the controversy. Gaudreau also said he wanted to honor Zarutska, and the uproar is distracting from that.
“In my painting, the blue shapes represent these individual points of view. They all sort of seem to converge on her and sort of strangle her in a sense, and she still pops up through,” said Gaudreau, who was inspired by Zarutska’s cooking, art and love of nature. “It’s stifling my freedom of expression, and my right to free speech because they’re not even letting me finish the work.”
In murals commissioned by the Avenue Concept, the organization tries to protect artistic freedom, but also recognizes that murals are subject to pushback and depend on permission from property owners.
“Free speech does not come free of responsibility, and it also does not come free of reactions,” said Bolotin. “Especially when you’re in a public space, people are free to react the same way you’re free to put up what you want.”
Bolotin said the Avenue Concept plans to produce resources for both artists and building owners to learn about funding and researching public art projects. The organization is also holding a public forum at AS220 on Tuesday, April 7 to discuss the mural controversy.
For Platzer, the Zarutska murals are functioning as intended and contrary to his efforts to bring the community together—to platform a conservative symbol or get outraged when the project receives pushback.
“There’s really no way to talk about the mural without talking about the company it’s keeping within this larger effort,” said Platzer. “It’s perfectly designed to rage bait both sides… You’re damned if you do, you’re damned if you don’t.”
As Gaudreau and the Dark Lady prepare to take down their mural, the unfinished face of Iryna Zarutska continues to make eye contact with “Empire Rising” as Providence visitors park Downtown. Lauren YS is hoping to educate other artists on where this money to paint Zarutska is coming from.
“I think this is a form of resistance, spreading this information, saying no, [and] educating other artists,” said Lauren YS. “I think it’s more and more important that we care as artists because the platform that we have is massive. And the things we choose to say are massive and important.”
Eric Halvarson is a City News Reporter for The Providence Eye.
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