In an residential section of Montreal,
below: A boy with a slingshot by mateo
below: Large mural of woman by Drew Merritt
at Milton and Saint-Famille
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Author Archives: Mary C
new slaps on Toronto streets
below: The garbage always leaks before you can get rid of the bag! A trashy Daught calm sticker.
below: Knome with an expression of alarm. a cute little sketchnate puppy and urban ninja squadron sprouted big ears when tbonez teamed up with srats (sketchrats). All on the side of a Canada Post mail box.
below: 1. The woman with a heart for an eye (got her eye on love?) looks like the work of Italian street artist c_ska. It also looks like she’s taking her temperature. Another c_ska sticker is a naked backside (or is it?) on top of an urban ninja squadron. Yes, you can make jokes about being on top. 2. Talking about jokes, playing on words is daught calm’s ‘be a tuber’ YouTube dig. I guess that’s better than being a potato. 3. The little orange guy, pizza guy? pizza face? is by sketch nate.
below: Red chick light bulb, lites creation.
below: Looking for a drink?
below: Brian has become an astronaut.
below: Morbid, Icey, etc. along with the bearded face of No love; Alone boy in black and white by ozokoh. And of course, don’t worry. It took a while… but see that grey face and its mysterious signature? It’s a lino print by Brian (aka bodh.io)
below: Tbonez with a new face
below: Urban Ninja Squadron as a climbing frame for a whole slew of little sketch nate characters.
below: Forge fury, feelings boi, and a sad puppy (yee hop) by sketch nate.
below: Pikachu and a pokeball…. and a pokemon character that I don’t know.
faces near Roma Termini
There is a cluster of murals featuring people’s faces near Roma Termini, the central train station. More specifically, at the intersection of Via Giovanni Giolitti and Via Alfredo Cappellini. Many of these are the work of Mauro Sgabri.
below: “Divine Welcome” by Sgarbi – Dante on the right and an immigrant woman on the left, face to face.
below: On the left is “Gaetano” repainted in 2019 (by Sgarbi). On the right is a portrait by beet root, aka Riccardo Beetroot, of Trilussa, an Italian poet whose name was actually Carlo Alberto Saulstri (1871-1950). He is shown here surrounded by some of the words from “Felicita”, one of his more famous poems.
C’è un’ape che se posa
su un bottone de rosa:
lo succhia e se ne va…
Tutto sommato, la felicità
è una piccola cosa.
.
below: Another portrait by Sgarbi, this time ‘Manzi the teacher”. Alberto Manzi was an Italian teacher who gave Italian lessons on TV in the 1960s and 1970s.
below: … with the body of a man but with the head of a goat
below: The last two paintings in this area, by unknown artists
Montreal slaps
This post is a selection of stickers and paste ups (wheatpaste) that I saw in Montreal in the past few days.
below: A @dysastrophy bunny with a gas mask and a painted hand grenade.
below: Paste ups at number 4. That hand is reaching past the butterfly and flowers towards the door handle.
below: That’s supposed to be a green and purple Frida Kahlo and she’s saying something: “Nothing is absolute. Everything changes, everything moves, everything revolves, everything flies and goes away.“
below: “No man camps” says the sign. This is a protest sticker, as the yellow words on his jacket, Wetsuweten strong, suggest. It references their complaints and protests against the Coastal GasLink pipeline. 
below: A pink man by labrona
below: Another labrona head, in shades of orange this time.
below: Two turtlecaps with a heart between them.
below: A hand drawn sticker signed by Bonnie 
below: Superman Bear in Montreal – a sticker by G. Knight (Graffiti Knight)
below: The Kiddist out and about with his camera
below: Any idea of what these men are carrying?
below: Little white ghost pretending to be something he’s not while he collects lost claws. Actually, lost claws is the name of the artist.
below: An elephant with a few cans of beer already consumed so he says “I won’t remember you”. This is another lost claws creation.
below: Waxhead sticker
below: An encounter with a couple of cowboys, a poster by someone with a signature that I haven’t been able to decipher.
below: A selection of paper wheatpaste in varying conditions. The blue ice cream in melting. The bottom left is another waxhead paste up….. And then there are some from TCF (the chosen few) including squiggles from forge fury, Tbonez (urban ninja squadron) is on his phone, and lastly a roc roc birdie by ROC(514) is starting to peel off.
below: Remnants, left over from better times.
below: Play your truth
by the Chinatown gate
below: “May an Old Song Open an Old Door” is a bright mural that catches your attention as you approach the entrance to Montreal’s Chinatown at Rene Levesque Blvd and St. Laurent. A woman holding a yellow lily stands between two red masks, one represents optimism for the future and the other represents nostalgia for a past left behind.
below: A close up of the opera singer in the center of the mural that was produced by MU and painted by Gene Pendon and Bryan Beyung in 2015. MU is an organization whose “mission is to beautify the city of Montreal by creating murals that are anchored in local communities.”
below: A more traditional Chinese painting based on calligraphy
below: “Salut Gilles” by Benny Wilding, a tribute to F1 driver Gilles Villeneuve. Unfortunately, a lot of it has been tagged over including the painting of the racing car.
below: Serving up noodles with a giant ladle.
Eros & Psyche
‘Eros & Psyche’ is a large mural painted by Greek artist insane51 as part of Montreal’s 2019 Mural Festival. It is designed to be viewed with 3D glasses. Painted in blues is the ‘exterior’ of a woman while the skeleton and brain are shown in reds.
In Greek mythology Psyche was the goddess of the soul and the wife of Eros, the god of love. Eros, also known as Cupid (in Latin, or Roman mythology), was the son of Aphrodite and he was always throwing arrows to people in order to hit their heart and make them fall in love. Psyche was the youngest daughter of a king; she was more beautiful than any goddess. The story of Eros and Psyche is long and a bit convoluted. It involves prophesies, happiness followed by betrayal and heart ache but of course it has a fairy tale ending, Psyche becomes immortal, and the couple live happily ever after.
Librairie Henri-Julien
Librairie Henri-Julien, on the corner of Villeneuve and Henri-Julien, has three walls of colourful murals. On the east side of the building is this waxhead and cryote (aka Sebastian Millar) painting – Protector of the sacred texts in the citadel of yellow pencils.
below: Carrying a lot of books on her head!
below: A five-eyed cat, parrot….
below: blue cats, pink cats, and a puppy blossom by cryote.
Keeping Mary Company
Like many corners in Rome, this one in Trastevere has a religious picture on the wall. Here you can see Mary, Jesus, and a couple of angels as well as ‘Ave Maria’ above the picture in what looks to be neon lights. This Mary is accompanied by the words Ricordo Delle Missioni Imperali Borromeo, Marzo MCMXLIX (i.e. 1949). Ricordo delle meaning “I remember”, or more loosely, In memory of”
Mary now has a lot of company.
below: Crying but still punk Eiknarf sticker as well as a “Volti Spenti” soulless man on his phone, or no face no ego, by Luther Posca
below: A black stencil of a woman with long hair and a red Thauma at the tip of what looks like a long green tail with little suction cups on the bottom.
below: A Jesus face, tifa toro on his cheek, and a cat by Guaro
below: Paste-ups and wheatpastes don’t last forever. 1. In the top right corner are two drawings by LUS57 of women doing things. One of them is vacuuming the universe – Saturn and the stars should be quite clean. 2. Little Qwerty pieces fun to find – this one with the yellow hoodie doesn’t seem like much but I think the bottom half is missing. 3. Last, the little red balloon is the top of a tiny Exitenter painting.
below: These are in better shape. 1. A papaya by Per Dispetto whose art centers around that fruit. 2. A large red and white cat mouth open wide and eating an origami cat whole by Krems. 3. The tree with its light green flowers was created by stelleconfuse. 4. Zeta’s little man in gold and black has a post-it note on this torso.. it’s bent so it’s not easy to read by the words ‘sempre’ and ‘indefinable’ are there and it was signed by someone called Jenny (I think!). Zeta’s instagram shows many variations on this man theme. 5. The little cat is “signed” but I can’t read the writing very well; it looks like BZQueen? and Confused Cat. 6. The two animals in the top right corner are a mystery.
below: 1. Mr. Minimal, superhero in his blue underpants and flowing cape. 2. A character out of science fiction or just outer space…?, by Winston Smith. 3. And last, Lovers by K2M.
below: Two more ladies hard at work by LUS57. Above them, God wants to undo his creation work in a play on Michelangelo’s famous painting on the the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.
The next few are small pieces that I saw nearby but not on the corner with the above.
below: A dog stamp. A play on the Romulus and Remus symbol/statue that you see around Rome. Is there significance to the XXX? This is the work of Gu Tang Clan
The previous blog post was also about graffiti in Trastevere. You should be able to find it by scrolling down. If not, this is the link: Trastevere slaps
Trastevere slaps
On Christmas morning, while walking around Rome, we discovered a wall in the Trastevere neighbourhood that was covered with paste-ups, stickers, and other small graffiti. Some of it was made by well known street artists, others by those who remain anonymous. If you know the name of the artist who created any of these, I’d love to hear from you. This is what we saw:
below: Red nose boxer with black eyes by MIMI the clowN as well as hands vainly reaching for green dollars by levodopa_046_. A very small pair of very high heeled shoes sneak into the left side.
below: Fishes Invasion stickers and paste ups can be seen in many places around Rome. They all feature Invader Fish, a two legged walking fish with big lips. The fish actually started in New York City in 2015 and has spread around the world since then.
below: ‘Volti spenti’ translates to ‘dull faces’ which is a comment on the poor guy taking a selfie with his phone. The cat is probably the work of Guaro and there is a yellow chick that wants you to know that it’s not a nugget.
below: The woman on top is by C-ska
below: To Live and Let Live – Street art against hate.
below: Bottom right is an elaborate black and white drawing by Lus57 of a woman who appears to be wearing a long dress but on closer look it’s actually a man’s torso and a tiger skin. She is holding a rifle in her hand. In contrast, there is a woman with bright copper hair and wild sunglasses – the work of stickermaidberlin.
below: The bottom half of a Smilin’ Croc above a black and white portrait of a woman by Y-Tong and a big-nosed K2M man with an orange heart.
below: Even Santa Claus helps spread the word about the Fishes Invasion although the pink and blue tiger seems to have an opinion about that.
below: The Fonz says plant a tree because it’s cool.
below: A purplish blue snake-like fish bites itself. There is also a small C-ska sticker of a woman with a heart in the place of one eye.
below: My Dog Sighs, a crying eye on page 120 of an old book – with the photographer (selfie?) reflected in the eye. Also, another C-ska piece – a woman with a bird cage for a head… meaning?
All Amman
This is the last of the Amman blog posts
I have made a video of all the street art that I saw when I was in Jordan and it is on youtube WordPress didn’t like it when I tried to embed the video in this post.
Before I went to Amman I found @ammanstreetart on instagram. Check it out! It is the creation of Dina Toukan and Leen Al-Haddad, two young women trying to raise awareness of the wonderful street art in their city. I would like to thank them for giving me suggestions as to where to start looking when I went hunting back in January.
All of the artwork in the video appears in this blog as well and these are all the links to the relevant pages (plus the last few photos at the bottom of this post):
- aptART gender equality
- Breaking the Silence
- colours and people on the stairs
- crushing cars & flying blue spaceships
- faces on Nemr Al-Edwan street
- folklore on a mannequin
- four Batmans and an old man’s bird
- Jadal and Al-Kalha stairs
- large murals in Al Hashmi Al Shamali
- little things
- Mig the robot
- pink flamingo
- potted plants and umbrellas
- Suhaib Attar’s women
- walls of Terra Sancta College, Baladk 2016
- What will I be?
below: by Zein
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