The mural at Nando’s.

Armed with acrylic paint and aerosol sprays, Kilmany-Jo Liversage began to make a section of Knox Road a little more beautiful.

Liversage, an artist from South Africa, was hired to paint a mural on the wall outside of the new Nando’s Peri-Peri restaurant. The 15-foot-tall wall faces the College Park Shopping Center and is adjacent to Terrapin’s Turf.

Nando’s Peri-Peri, a restaurant that first opened its doors in 1987 at a location in South Africa, hired Liversage as part of an effort to have original works of authentic South African art in each of its locations as a reminder of where the restaurant chain began.

The mural painted by Liversage took about five days to finish and depicts a bespectacled woman. It pops off the cement walls with bright colors and street art-inspired graffiti.

The woman painted on the wall isn’t a product of Liversage’s imagination. Liversage likes to draw her inspiration from both social media and people she knows.

“[The woman] is a South African fashion blogger called Siki,” Liversage wrote in an email. “She introduced herself to me and I was taken by her fashion persona, so I asked if I could paint her.”

Liversage’s work usually depicts women, she wrote. This isn’t a coincidence.

“I paint mostly women because I am comfortable with [that],” Liversage wrote. “I like to paint strong women with a touch of femme fatalism.”

Liversage wrote that she painted a strong, interesting and independent woman in her life in an effort to “relate to the young female students of Maryland.”The artist wants women on the campus to be able to view and relate to the “strength, independence and confidence” that the woman in the mural exudes.

 The size and style of Liversage’s work are also important factors. Liversage started “dabbling in graffiti elements” at a solo show in 2004, but didn’t attempt a mural until she went to Medellín, Colombia, to complete a residency as part of the Unesco-Aschberg Bursary, an international artists residency program.

“Amazingly [painting murals] was so easy to do,” Liversage wrote. “In fact, the bigger the better.”

Liversage’s artistic talent is obviously not a new development in her life. In fact, she got her start in the art world at a young age, soon discovering art was the only path for her.

“My fathers workshop was my favorite place to hang out [during my childhood],” wrote Liversage wrote. “I loved working with my hands like my dad, being an artist was the only career that made sense to me.”

The artist wrote that her ascent through the art community was not a quick one. In fact, it took her about 20 years to fulfill her dream of becoming a professional contemporary South African artist. She had to work many jobs that she hated to make money to continue pursuing art. Yet, she wrote that she always knew that art was the only path for her.

As a professional artist, she had an important message for aspiring artists in College Park and beyond.

“Be prepared to be stomped on, it shapes you,” she wrote. “Find your authenticity and portray it in your art.”