Boats on a Painted River, Selena Gomez’s Rare Beauty Leaves a Mural in Boyle Heights
Muralist Mr. B Baby painted the brand’s #RareConsejo piece at Las Fotos Project, and visitors are invited to see it.
At Las Fotos Project on Cesar E. Chavez Avenue in Boyle Heights, a river now runs across a wall. Selena Gomez’s beauty brand, Rare Beauty, commissioned the Mexican American artist Michelle Guerrero, who paints as Mr. B Baby, to create an original mural there for its #RareConsejo campaign in honor of Latine Heritage Month.
The brief was a single mantra, “El mar recibe todos los ríos,” or “the sea welcomes all rivers.” Guerrero answered with cartoon-style dolls riding boats down a colorful river around a central woman, a figure she has described as an inner child. The dolls recall Lelé dolls, the traditional handcrafted Mexican rag dolls with woven dresses and long ribboned braids.
“They signify a lot to me,” Guerrero told Los Angeles magazine. “People will see me painting and get excited because they know what those are, and they connect to them and I love to be able to include pieces of my work where people feel connected and represented,” she said.
Gomez spoke to the setting in a statement. “One of the things I love most about being Latina is the incredible sense of community,” she said. “There’s always this feeling of connection and belonging. This mural reflects that feeling in a space designed to bring people together.”
#RareConsejo began in 2023 as a content series in which Latine members of the Rare Beauty team shared wisdom and beauty secrets passed down by loved ones. It has grown into a yearly campaign that also spotlights local Latine artists and businesses. Guerrero, 37, grew up in Chula Vista, painted her own face with bold makeup from the age of 14, moved to Los Angeles 10 years ago and works in spray paint. Velvet also covered Judy Baca’s Great Wall at the Skirball.
The wall belongs to the right house. Las Fotos Project is a nonprofit in its fifteenth year that mentors teenage girls and gender-expansive youth of color through photography, from a home it calls an anchor of creativity and community in Boyle Heights. Rare Beauty invites visitors to see the mural in person. Las Fotos hosts a Night to Network career event on Saturday, October 3, from 5 to 8 p.m., and opens Josefina Guadalupe Chavez’s exhibition Botas de Charro with a reception on Sunday, October 11, from 2 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.
