DanielleMastrion’s Biggie Small (photo by Alezandra Uzik for Bushwick Daily)

This week we’re introducing a mural by Danielle Mastrion The Notorious B.I.G. Street Art Candy is a our brand-new weekly column dedicated to exploration of street art in Bushwick. Every week we feature one amazing mural that we’ve been passing by and loving.

Who: Danielle Mastrion

What: The Notorious B.I.G.

Where: The Bushwick Collective (St. Nicholas Ave and Troutman St, Bushwick)

Artist says: “The Biggie came about because I am from Brooklyn and a huge fan. It is an oil painting that’s on my business card. I handed my card to Joe [Ficalora], the curator at The Bushwick Collective and he literally asked me to reproduce the image on my card on the wall. It was my first full color aerosol piece; all my walls before then were mostly black & grey with a pop color. I never realized how much attention the piece would get. I still get hits on social media every day about it and I believe it is one of the longest running pieces at The Bushwick Collective.”

From: Brooklyn, New York (born and raised)

Recent Work: “I’ve been wanting my walls to have a little bit more social commentary, use them as an educational to – so my most recent wall I completed at The Bushwick Collective is a huge mural of Malala Yousafzai; the Pakistani young woman who was up for the Nobel Prize for her fights on education and women’s right against the Taliban.”

Online: www.daniellemastrion.com

Danielle has been painting her entire life. “I found that my work was getting larger and I was painting quicker so I naturally moved onto walls. I also wanted my work to reach a wider audience,” says Danielle, who has also painted walls in Miami, DC, Paris, Germany, England and Belize.

Her mural The Notorious B.I.G. reminds us how important it is to believe in your dreams. Before Christopher Wallace, a.k.a The Notorious B.I.G., became a famous rapper, he was hustling on the streets. Things changed after he met a record producer who told him he needed to choose between hustling and following his dreams. And the rest is history…