Local artist transforms guns into sculptures

There’s an art opening today in an unlikely place – the lobby of the downtown Los Angeles Police Department headquarters. The art is unusual too – sculptures made from firearms turned over to the city through its gun buyback program.

Victor Hugo Zayas was teaching art to kids in one of the most violent parts of south LA. “Some of these kids, even to get to my workshops, sometimes they have to take a bus for an hour and they live three miles away,” said Zayas. “But they couldn’t walk.”

“Hopefully the message will be that it doesn’t matter; they don’t have to be sculptures, they can be your own life, but you can transform it into something positive,” Zayas said. While most of the pieces are abstract, Zayas pointed out that one is a portrait he made in tribute to a friend who died from gun violence. “And as time goes by it’s starting to look for me, every time I look at the sculpture I see him now,” he said.

The exhibit opens today at 5:30 p.m. during LA’s Downtown Art Walk. The exhibit will be on display through mid-July.