Chicago-based artist Chris Devins is currently under fire for depicting former U.S. first lady Michelle Obama as an Egyptian queen ... but that's not the reason the mural is at the center of controversy.
The mural, which went up in Chicago's South Side neighborhood on Friday, turned out to be a plagiarized image - which was originally the work of Ethiopian-born artist >Gelila Lila Mesfin.
Mesfin posted the image of her artwork on her Instagram account back in November.
That same month, Devins launched a crowdfunding campaign on GoFundMe, raising nearly $12,000 to get the mural (using Mesfin's artwork) done.
"The purpose of this mural is to give today's children someone they can literally look up to and to celebrate Mrs. Obama's life and accomplishments during the last 8 years as First Lady of the United States," the crowdfunding campaign says.
The campaign was launched back in November, but Devins only recently got the work painted on an apartment building.
"I wanted to present her as what I think she is, so she’s clothed as an Egyptian queen. I thought that was appropriate," Devins told DNAinfo.
"Things quickly began to unravel when those familiar with Mesfin’s work pointed out the uncanny similarity," he added.
Mesfin was quick to call out Devins in an Instagram post, with a caption that read:
"How can you just steal someone's artwork... someone's hard work and claim it like it's yours... how can you go on record and say you designed this... this is so disheartening and so disrespectful on so many levels... like this man seriously created a GoFundMe page, raised money and did this... it's one thing to share or even profit from someone's work but to claim it as yours is just wrong!" >Mesfin wrote.
How did he respond? "Sometimes the ID of a community can't be expressed through original work, but needs 'found' images," Devins tweeted after the outrage.
Devins apologized for the "misunderstanding" in an email to DNAinfo, explaining that his mural was inspired by Mesfin's piece, which he first came across on Pinterest.
"Our non profit Urban Planning Projects often include painting inspired by found images," Devins said.
"We were blown away by a wonderful image we stumbled on and only found out after the fact who the source of our inspiration was. We in no way meant to [infringe] on anyone’s creativity."
In an update to his crowdfunding page, Devins wrote:
"If you want to go there, the so called 'original' is 'stolen' from photographer Collier Schorr," he said, citing a New York Times piece titled 'To The First Lady, With Love,' which was published in 2016.
That was where the original photo first appeared, minus the Egypt-inspired look.