Artist in trouble over Michelle Obama mural

A new mural of former US First Lady Michelle Obama depicting her as an Egyptian queen and painted on a building in the Chicago neighborhood where she lived as a child has courted controversy.

Shortly after Chicago artist Chris Devins finished the mural last Friday, criticism began bubbling up online. People accused him of copying the image from Rhode Island art student Gelila Mesfin, who had posted a nearly identical portrait of Michelle on Instagram last year, CNN reported. News of the mural’s existence came as a huge surprise to Mesfin, too. “How can you just steal someone’s artwork... someone’s hard work and claim it like it’s yours...” she wrote in an Instagram post. Devins has denied any wrongdoing.