Yeah, right now we're walking to the site.

It's a short, you know, to me it's short, yeah.

I grew up walking around this neighborhood.

- [Narrator] James Hough is back in Pittsburgh's Hill District headed down Centre Avenue to the empty corner lot where he's about to create something significant for himself as an artist and for the community.

So we have tagging here.

- Yes.

- [Narrator] Tell me the difference between that art.

You call it art.

- Oh, I do.

- You do?

And what you'll be doing, - I think graffiti is more of an individualistic and more of a personal expression grounded in, you know, that type of thing.

Whereas public art really is about the community.

It's about working with the community's vision.

- [Narrator] James Hough, who is known as Yaya, will bring new or a new interpretation of public art to The Hill.

He will create, build, and install a mural on the side of that building here on Centre.

- So we'll have our portrait here toward the end of this wall.

- [Narrator] Hough was commissioned to crum and work in a white cube gallery space.

They take in aspects of this city and its history and respond to them quite directly, responding to the conditions of life in this region, what it means to be here.

- [Narrator] Hough's inclusion the International Exhibit is the culmination of a long and often traumatic journey.

As a teenager here in The Hill, Hough was convicted of murder and sentenced to life without parole, he was 17.

- I was caught up in, you know, the dysfunction of a community, a dysfunction of, you know, my own family, and that led me to make horrible decisions, right?

I was incarcerated for approximately, well, exactly 27 years, - [Narrator] Locked up and growing from youth to middle-aged man.

He turned to art drawing scenes depicting the indignities, violence and hopelessness of prison life.

- It was through that process that I was able to do some really powerful work on myself, extremely beautiful people who served as mentors, role models, you know, and helped me get back on a path that would not only allow me to maximize my human potential and my ability to be a person who could move throughout the world and touch other people.

- [Narrator] And then came a gift that changed everything.

- It was the United States Supreme Court had ruled that that became unconstitutional per the Eighth Amendment, that juveniles couldn't be sentenced to mandatory life imprisonment terms.

- [Narrator] In 2019, he was released.

His new freedom comes with the burdens of regret and responsibility.

- It wouldn't be me to determine that, you know, it wouldn't be me to say, well, I should be forgiven.

You know, I think, you know, that would be arrogant of me to even propose things like that.

What I've always done is I've demonstrated by the way I live, by the way I engage with people, by the way, you know, by the way, I interact with people, Hey, what we could do is we could get started on some of the text panels.

You know, by the way I talk to them, by the way I treat them, and I think those acts, those daily, you know, quotidian, mundane, you know, sort of actions sort of add up into, you know, forms of atonement.

- [Narrator] While much of his work is centered on the punitive and unforgiving nature of incarceration, - I think morally, as a society, we can't foreclose on young people.

- [Narrator] His mural will carry a message that is uplifting and inclusive, - [James] Probably about 12 colors for this whole.

- [Narrator] He invited community members to help him paint his images onto large panels.

- I like to focus on the beauty of Black people and marginalized people, and my goal is to show the absolute beauty and majesty that was, that's absent in the narrative about us.

- And the design.

There's a young person's huge portrait represented in a profile, but it's meant to inspire young people to one, have self-esteem, pride in their community, and with them seeing the image, they'll also read the text.

Well, it says, "Have a belief in yourself that is bigger than anyone's disbelief."

And that is a quote by August Wilson.

A lot of people in this community don't traffic in museums.

They may not go to galleries, but they'll see the mural.

(uptempo electronic music) - [Narrator] And then the community came to celebrate the mural and The Hill's place in art history.

- I mean, to put it in one word, it's amazing, you know, it's amazing.

It is been a dream come true in so many different ways.

- He's framed it as a gift to Pittsburgh by Pittsburgh.

I think there's a kind of radical act of generosity there.

The work is on the one hand, a mural, an image, but it's also a work of social practice - [Narrator] In the sky that day was one perfect cloud evocative of another artist who lived in a different time.

Rene Magritte painted clouds as a symbol of a changing world.

- [James] You all just come up, you know, and just listen.

- Yaya Hough hopes his work will inspire change.

- I think that you know, this community, like every community deserves great art.

Not just see walls, you know, not just see walls, which kind of represent confinement.

You know, to see walls that have paintings on 'em.

See walls that have beautiful things on 'em.

See walls that have words on 'em that inspire them, you know?

And I think every time people look at this mural, they'll see something new each time.

You know, it's like a new sunrise every day.

(tense dramatic music)