Art without borders: 'French Banksy' produces touching portrait over US-Mexico border

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A French street artist has produced a poignant piece of art on the US-Mexico border.

The image depicts a little boy on the Mexican side of the border, where President Trump vowed to build a wall to stop illegal immigrants crossing into the US.

In supersized photograph the little boy appears to be peering over the border wall into the US.

Dubbed as the ‘French Banksy’, street artist JR travelled to the Mexican side of the border to work on one of his signature, giant photographs.

JR said the portrait was of a toddler called Kikito and is available at the Tecate Port of Entry to the US for a month.

The Frenchman posted an image of his work in progress on Twitter, which has since gone viral and has so far been retweeted 14,000 times and liked 27,000 times.

The piece of art comes after Trump’s scrapping of the DACA scheme which protects young undocumented immigrants – known as ‘Dreamers’ – who came to the US as children.

In a statement JR said the boy could be “looking over the border worried that if things get crazier on the other side, people will massively cross the border in his direction”.

The artist said his work is a continuation of the global InsideOut 11M project he helped launch in 2013.

The initiative displayed portraits in public spaces around the world to pay tribute to the “power and dignity” of the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the US.

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