A woman, Madonna-like? or in a Muslim head scarf?….. holding an olive branch which is a symbol of peace, but she’s wearing an ammo belt around her waist.
Aurora refers to the buildings covered in the brightly coloured stripes, a work by the Spanish artist collective Boa Mistura. It includes the test, “In het hart van elke winter leeft een trillende lente” which translates to “In the heart of every winter lives a vibrating spring”. The artwork covers 228 apartment units and is probably the largest mural in Europe.
In front of the apartment complex is a large 3-D sign spelling the name of the city, Heerlen. When it was first installed, it was orange. Now it has been enhanced with some DazeTwo ravens and crows at one end ….
…. and the ending letters were decorated by Amber Delahaye with other elements from nature such as mushrooms, butterflies, and flowers.
NOTE: The quote on the buildings is taken from one by Kahlil Gibran which says: “In every winter’s heart there is a quivering spring, and behind the veil of each night there is a smiling dawn”
There are many murals and other great street art works in Heerlen. There are too many for one blog post so I have tried to find a way to show them in small sections that make some sort of sense. My previous post (the workmen and the black birds) contained photos of the ravens or crows that DazeTwo features in most of his work so in this post I will continue with more bird themed murals.
below: A massive heron with a collection of items that help represent Heerlen, a mural best seen from the other side of the railway tracks, or better yet from a train as it enters the city. The “Heerlen Heron” was painted seven years ago by Vincent Lancee and Dave de Leeuw.
below: Another collaborative effort, this time DazeTwo teamed up with fellow Heerlen artist, Ivan Sanda (aka MF Ivan), to produce an image of a woman whose head is also that of a raven.
below: High above the street a yellow bird in a cage. The canary in the coal mine? by Collin van der Sluijs.
below: Dzia’s little blue chicken on Willemstraat.
below: And last, a quick bird head in the semi darkness under a bridge.
below: Miners hard at work under the mining museum in Heerlen.
below: More miners, but this time they are having a bit of fun riding in the mine carts as they roll downhill.
below: The Heerlen workmen aren’t just in the mines. You can see them in a number of places around the city.
below: In some cases you can spot them dealing with the blackbirds, the gold crown topped ravens.
below: The stenciled workmen were created by Jaune. On his Instagram page there is a great line, “The world belongs to those who build it”.
below: A white crow joins the fun.
below: A larger mural full of black birds. Like all the other birds in this post, this is the work of Daze Two, a local Heerlen artist.
below: Closer view of the ravens in the mural above.
below: Is there a story here? What kind of interaction is there between the realistic looking black birds and the flat red bird? X marks the spot, but why?
below: A last look at the birds, a small Daze Two work, part of a larger piece, on a brick wall.
Photos taken October 2023
More Heerlen murals can be seen in the next blog post – link to “more Heerlen birds“.
below: Zahra El Jadid’s lovely water play scene evoking childhood memories.
below: Earthship by Iota – reading, dreaming, imagining
below: A mermaid? On the streets of Antwerp? Listening to the fishes as they swim past. A mural by Lucia Biancalana,
below: The “Walls of BoHo District”, 2nd annual festival, held a contest that was won by 14 year old Anastasia Tsiqaridze. This is her design. He? She? is faceless yet mesmerizing. (Walls of BoHo = Walls of Borgerhout, a neighbourhood in Antwerp)
below: Painted by Joachim Lambrechts, this is an image of Mala Zimetbaum who was a Jewish woman who lived in Antwerp. In July 1942 she was arrested and deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau. She escaped once but was re-caught and ultimately died at Auschwitz.
below: The last few pictures are of the “Giants of BoHo”, another Joachim artwork. It depicts a large couple on two sides of a corner building. On Reuzenstraat (which translates to Giant Street!) is this woman.
There are a number of lanes and passageways that connect the canals/roads Singel and Herengracht in central Amsterdam. One of the narrowest of them is Treeftsteeg.
below: Entrance to the alley, from Herengracht.
Various messages and symbols of peace – “I Love Kherson”, a girl waving a large Ukranian flag, “Love no War” (Love not war?), a white dove with wings of blue and gold, “Love makes a house a home”. In addition (under the word Kherson) there is a portrait of George Yurri Shevelov (1908-2002). His CV is long but in general he is most known for his research proving that the Ukrainian language has a separate history from Russian.
below: The portrait of the man in the top left corner is of Taras Shevchenko (1814 – 1861), a famous Ukrainian poet. Moving right, the woman at the top with the orange background is the former Queen of the Netherlands, Queen Beatrix. Third from the left is Ukrainian writer and feminist Lesya Ukrainka whose work spanned the late 1800s and early 1900s. On the right side there is an image of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy although it is not the clearest picture.
below: Commemorating the sinking of the Moskva, a Russian ship in the Black Sea near the beginning of the war.
below: arrow showing the way to Kharkiv
below: caricatures
below: The narrowness of Treeftsteeg. Along with the pro-Ukraine messages, there are a few black and white portraits.
below: These portraits are part of “A Paper Monument to the Paperless” is an ongoing project headed by Dutch artist Domenique Himmelsbach de Vries.
On all four corners of an intersection in a residential area of Heerlen (Netherlands) there is a mural on the side of one of the buildings. They were all painted by the same artist and they all feature some aspect of Dutch culture or history. A pink and purple theme also runs through them all.
below: On Oude Kerkstraat is “Operation Heartbeat” by American artist Gaia – A heart surrounded by different flowers from the Dutch “Empire”
below: Another Gaia mural across the street from his hearts and flowers is this bit of local history – Former Prime Minister of the Netherlands, Joop den Uyl, announces the end of the coal mining in Limburg, December 1, 1965.
below: ‘Tulipmania’. The face is that of Frederik Hendrik (1584-1647) who was a Statdtholder of the Dutch Republic, as well as a sovereign Prince of Orange during the Dutch Golden Age, i.e. in the time of Tulipmania. I doubt that he’s a recognizable face these days but it’s an interesting detail just the same.
below: ‘Resilience’ was influenced by the painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder (d. 1569) who painted scenes of everyday peasant life. Here is a contemporary scene of everyday urban life.
Passage De La Main D’Or is a narrow street in the 11th arr. in Paris. At one point the street turns and becomes Rue De La Main D’Or. It is at this turning point that I saw the following:
below: Street scene, Passage De La Main D’Or with markings and small artworks on a wall.
below: She’s printed on pre-printed paper. It appears to be a cocktail drink list written in English with Bloody Mary being the last drink on her neck. Another drink on the list is gin, lime juice, and simple syrup.
below: Many little things. At the very top is a brightly coloured Stoeyes image of a young woman with a blue face. Just below her are three “tourists” with their phones and their Paris bags drawn by Erwan Guerroué.
below: Mosiac tile shapes, a running person who’s hard to see, and a black and white photo in the top right corner. The photo shows a woman standing outside a building and smoking a cigarette. It has been given the title Respiro and it is signed Les Vies Dansent.
Rue Oberkampf is in the 11th arrondissement in Paris.
below: Tall pink mural by Francis Essoua, (aka Enfant Précoce)
below: A mix of little scenes, thunder and lightning, twins in red, pictures in a gallery,
below: Horse, by BONOM aka Vincent Glowinski
below: There were two little quick sketch portraits in red and yellow, possibly by LUIS?
below: A squashed spray paint can, a NEXT (nextmosaic) pedestrian crossing mosaic, and an orange and purple skull.
below: More little things, mostly paper this time – white dove of peace on the mailbox and two larger pieces beside, both by Corine Forest
below: These stencils were on a building at the corner of rue Oberkampf and rue Camille Crespin du Gast in the 11th.
below: A Kraken (aka Lou Daho) octopus, swims past as an orange cat or tiger jumps down.
below: “Telemaqueland” by Hervé Télémaque, was painted in 2000 along with eleven other large murals in Paris as part of a project “the walls of the year 2000” (les murs de l’an 2000).
below: Like many Paris streets, there is an Invader mosaic high up on a wall.
In Seville’s Poligono de San Pablo neighbourhood there is a growing number of murals on the ends of the midrise buildings that in the area. Since 2010, the group Arte Para Todos has organized the painting of most of these murals.
below: LEFT: “Younger Hands” by Josh Sarantitis. RIGHT: “Planeta Tierra” by Luis Alberto López Cruz
below: A closer look at the mural on the left, a young child pushes a wheel barrow.
below: And next, a closer look at the faces and abstractions in “Planeta Terra” – a horse, pink faces, flowers, and leaves.
below: “Flemenca” dancer by Maya Angelon, Verónica Werckmeister, and Cristina Werckmeister, painted early in February 2023. The words were taken from two sources – a song and a poem. They say “NOW you understand just why my head’s not bowed – it’s in the CLICK of my heels and the BEND of my hair, the palm of my hand, the need of my care, ’cause I’m a PHENOMENALLY phenomenal WOMAN, that’s me.”
below: Blue Earth map on Plaza Adoracion de Los Pastores. “Will tomorrow’s world be free?”. Signed INO, Wang Lu, Fl Vincent, Art For All 2010.
below: A South American themed “Inca Dreams”
below: Sleeping baby, “El niño” by Elninodelaspinturas, painted February 2023.
below: Two large murals and a green wall adorn the buildings.
below: A man divided, a man in two styles, a man painted by 310 Squad and given the title “Communist”. 310 Squad is a Russian artist, Stepan Krasnov.
below: All together in a banana-man boat, sailing through the water with the snakes and fishes in an imaginative creation by Nelson Roman. “El Cacique Banana y sus Guerreros” (The Chief Banana and his Warriors).
below: Yellow dots make the man – with a melting chin? Is he crying horizontal tears? The piece is titled “La Mirada Ilorona” (translates to the weeping look or the maudlin look) and it was also painted by 310 Squad.
below: Close by the weeping man, is another mural in yellow
below: “Agua Fértil” by Ivan Fiallos, rain falls into the water.
below: This is what lies under the water, a man on his back with his knees pointed upwards. A parrot sits on his knees while a dead? bird lies on his stomach.
below: She carries the city in a basket on her head as she wades past the ships and boats in a mural by Katie Yamasaki. The title is “Dedicado a la Infancia” (Dedicated to Childhood)
below: Filosofia, philosophy personified or brought to life?
below: Dancing in the garden
below: The next three go together with this first photo being the center of the artwork on a Parroquia de San Pablo wall.
Eyes on the Streets 