Top 11 Best Cities In America For Street Art
Navajo Nation, Arizona and New Mexico
Doctor-turned-artist Jetsonorama (who is originally from Raleigh, NC but settled “on the rez” as permanent physician in 1987) started the self-funded Painted Desert Project in 2012, inviting world-renowned street artists to paint murals throughout the Navajo Nation in Arizona (and one additional mural in New Mexico) to, he writes, “boost tourism on the reservation, to supplement the incomes of families with roadside stands, and to nurture the creative talent of local youth.”
The desert murals, placed on long stretches of desolate road in the breathtaking Painted Desert on the Colorado Plateau, take a hauntingly beautiful yet eerie quality, in counterpose to the typical urban environments such art is typically found.
The Navajo Nation is a semi-autonomous Native American territory covering 27,425 square miles (71,000 km2), occupying portions of northeastern Arizona, southeastern Utah, and northwestern New Mexico in the United States. This is the largest land area retained by a U.S. tribe, with a total population of 173,667.