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As she continues her work, it is becoming increasingly clear to bystanders that local mural artist Paula Berenson is totally phoning in her newest painting of a line of multicultural people holding hands.
The mural—which Berenson is lackadaisically painting on the brick side-wall of the neighborhood’s community center—depicts a group of people of various genders and races standing in a line while their hands are clasped together, and that’s about it.
“Like, at first I thought the mural was saying that stereotypes are bad,” said Malikah Adams, who stopped to look at the mural as she passed by. “But over there she’s just using the Great Wall of China inside of a cloud to represent Asia, and a straw hut inside of another cloud to represent Africa.”
Berenson appeared not to even be looking at her hands as she painted hair on one of the figures, each of which were painted one of three skin colors she had made. Passers by noted that Berenson had added triangular dresses to some figures, which sources could only assume meant they were female.
The figures, who all have the same blank, vaguely dumb expression, stand on top of a depiction of planet Earth with continents that look passably like Europe and North America but which fall apart under any strict scrutiny, much like the idea that this mural has anything insightful or relevant to say about the human condition.
Neighborhood residents aren’t really sure what Berenson is trying to say with the mural, though the fact that the mural’s rainbow has only four colors is leading most in the neighborhood to speculate that she’s not really trying to say all that much.
Though Berenson could not be reached for comment, sources report she was heard saying, “Fuck it,” before painting the stars in the mural’s night sky as inconsistently-sized globs of off-white paint.
