Turning Rio's Slums into Postcard Perfect Images

May 31, 2010 — -- Kids from Rio de Janeiro's notoriously dangerous, firefight-plagued slums have a tradition after the bullets stop flying. They huddle around, holding up their sweaty palms for their comrades to see. The hands still shaking in fear belong to the loser -- until the next firefight, another chance to prove their mettle.

Dutch artist Dre Urhahn has been the loser of that game many times.

He and his artistic partner, Jeroen Koolhaas, have embarked on an ambitious creative project, arming Rio's young with paintbrushes and buckets with the goal of transforming the city's 750 gritty, violent favelas -- largely ramshackle encampments -- into large-scale murals.

"I told the kids I would always lose their game," Urhahn, 36, said during a recent visit to New York, his hands now steady on the stem of a chardonnay glass at a sidewalk cafe. "The kids were like, 'Don't you worry, that's OK, you're not from here.' They were looking out for me and that's a really heartwarming experience.'"

Across the cafe table, the 33-year-old Koolhaas absentmindedly sketched the favelas the artists consider their lives' work in ballpoint pen on a paper napkin with his painted-strained fingers.

"Our goal is to paint a whole slum and have it be seen as a postcard image like the other places tourists come to see in Rio," Koolhaas said.

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The artists are well on their way toward that goal, having just completed their third project in Rio's favelas -- a 74,000-square-foot mural achieved by painting 34 houses in vivid shades of blues, greens and reds to appear as though rays of color are shooting across the hillside Santa Marta slum.

By employing 29 neighbors to paint each other's homes, Koolhaas and Urhahn were able to realize their vision in just under a month.

"Now we know our dream of painting a complete slum is actually a valid idea," Urhahn said of their latest effort. "It is possible and we can do it."