A black-white-mural of the Mona Lisa that has been an iconic landmark in Toronto’s Kensington Market for four decades was restored and completed, decades after the artist originally painted it as a dare.

According to the Toronto Star, the artist Peter Matyas and the Kensington Market Community Land Trust (a non-profit organization that owns and manages residential properties in the neighbourhood) worked to complete the mural—located on a wall of the building at 54–56 Kensington Ave.—over the past year.

The neighbourhood

While completing the mural, he added bees as a “nod to the invisible labour that supports the food system” and a new inscription that reads, “This building is community owned.”

The Kensington Market Community Land Trust contacted Matyas last year after hearing about a City of Toronto grant for outdoor art. The Trust only wanted Matyas to complete the project, partly “because we know how iconic the mural is in the neighbourhood,” according to Angela Ho, a community partner at the Trust. “It wouldn’t have felt right if we had chosen another artist to paint over that work, especially knowing the deep connections that Peter has with the Market,” she told the Star.

Matyas, now 74 and living in Bridgewater, N.S., returned to Toronto this fall to update and restore the piece. He told the Star that completing the project, which required painting eight to 10 hours a day for two weeks, left him overwhelmed.

He also told the Star that the mural represents Kensington Market’s spirit, where there is a tolerance for “different nationalities of people [and] large varieties of foods”.

Story courtesy of the Toronto Star.