Meet the Artist Behind the New RBG Mural

Since Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death in September, tributes in many forms have poured in from across the city. The latest is a colorful three-story-high mural on the side of an East Village building.

The mural is a work by the street artist known as Elle and features a large portrait of Ginsburg surrounded by a vibrant multicolored background that features various objects, from the Brooklyn Bridge, representing Ginsburg’s native borough, to the Contemplation of Justice, the statue which rests outside the Supreme Court.

Elle was excited to take on the project, she explained over the phone, partially because she felt a kinship with Ginsburg. While Ginsburg blazed trails for women in law, Elle also forged a path in a male-dominated field, that of graffiti art.

“There were very few women graffiti artists” when Elle entered the scene, she said. “I felt a need to represent the ladies.” Her moniker, drawn from the French for “she,” stems from this desire.

Elle moved to New York after college and, while working as a bartender, took up street art, putting up paintings and wheat-paste posters on walls. She got arrested, then got sponsored by a spray paint brand. Then came attention, commissions, and invitations to festivals and galleries. “It kind of turned into a job.”

Return to New York

On September 19, the day after Justice Ginsburg’s death, Elle received a phone call from Simon Isaacs of Into Action US, an organization that commissions public artworks related to political causes.

Isaacs wanted Elle, now based in California, to return to New York and paint a memorial to Ginsburg. “I usually don’t paint portraits, but I had recently seen the documentary ‘RBG,’ and I was really a fan of hers,” Elle said.

Originally, Into Action US had planned to find a site for the mural near Ginsburg’s Brooklyn birthplace. However, in late September and early October, the areas of Flatbush and Borough Park where they were searching came under increased city restrictions following a COVID-19 spike among the area’s Hasidic Jewish community. Between local lockdowns and difficulty finding a receptive site for street art in the area, Elle had to look elsewhere.

With the help of the local public art nonprofit LISA Project NYC, Elle secured space for her mural on a wall in the East Village, on the south side of 11th Street, at First Avenue. The memorial to Ginsburg was to replace a worn-out mural by artist Shepard Fairey, best known for the Obama “Hope” poster.

Elle, who has known Fairey for several years, said that replacing his mural “was a huge honor and a lot of pressure.” Despite this pressure, she realized the opportunity that painting a mural in honor of such a well-known figure as Ginsburg represented.

“It was really cool to feel that people walking by the piece would be just as connected to it as I was. Normally, my characters are sort of abstract, so the public potentially has a harder time connecting with it.”

With a canvas secured, Elle had to come up with a design with the right tone and elements to represent Ginsburg’s wide-ranging legacy. “I wanted to create something RBG would be happy with. She was sort of proper, but also could laugh at things like the Biggie Smalls reference.”

Tributes to Ginsburg

The mural, Elle said, has been received very well by locals.

“It’s been really lovely. There were a couple of times when I was coming down on the scissor lift [while painting the mural] and people were applauding me, which was a first. It was awesome that people were relating to the wall, and appreciating it. I hope people can look up to it as inspiration, and a memory to [Ginsburg’s] fierce work and a reminder to keep on carrying the torch.”

For Elle, painting the mural to honor Ginsburg’s life was a meaningful project. “A lot of my career has been about getting into a field where there aren’t a lot of women,” she said. “I get to live off the work she’s done.”

The mural also marked a big return to the city where her street art career began. In addition to the RBG mural in the East Village, Elle’s work can also currently be seen in a 3000 square foot mural near the foot of the Vessel in Hudson Yards.

Elle’s mural is one of the many tributes to Ginsburg pouring in from across the city. These range from the impromptu, such as the wreaths laid at Central Park’s Women’s Rights Pioneers statue, to the official.

In September, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced he would rename the Brooklyn Municipal Building for Ginsburg. “All of us who looked up to her are grateful she is finally getting the recognition she deserves,” said Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, who had campaigned for the name change since 2018. Additionally, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced plans to build a statue of Ginsburg to be unveiled on March 15, 2021, her 88th birthday.