Author Archives: Mary C

endless street art

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Or rather, the street art of endless.  Whenever I see, or think about, his street art, the song ‘Endless Love’ as sung by Lionel Ritchie and Diana Ross comes into my head.  Not quite the vision that should be inspired by his work especially since a lot of his images involve weapons, big weapons.

below: No sign of guns in this one though… Queen Elizabeth with hard hat on, ready to work.

street art piece of head of Queen Elizabeth, wearing a hard hat with endless written on it, as well as a yellow scarf with Yves Saint Laurent logo on it.

street art piece of a person squatting beside a building, shooting an automatic weapon towards the edge of the building. A trash can and car are beside the building

on wood construction hoardings, a paste up by endless of a newspaper boy holding up a newspaper

street art piece of a person squatting beside a building, shooting an automatic weapon towards the edge of the building. A young man is taking a picture with his phone on the other side of the building.

a person standing with a white bandana on his face and a large gun in his hand

black stencil on wood of mickey mouse holding a revolver

Another image that endless uses a lot is a coke can.

a coca cola can painted as an endless classic where the words end less are written in the same style as coca cola on the iconic red can

A coke zero black can is turned into a can of spray paint in this street art paste up. Instead of coca cola it says end less

below: I don’t think the wonderful picture of the soldier on horseback is by endless.

two vertical street art pieces on a black building, with windows on either side of them. one is a soldier on a horse and the other is a white drawing by endless

below: This paste-up was on a wall on Blackall Street.

large black and white paste up of a woman in high heels and long flouncy dress

portraits in Shoreditch

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As I walked around Shoreditch and other areas in east London, I saw a lot of portraits by street artist Paul ‘Don’ Smith.  He’s been painting on the streets for more than 25 years, mostly portraits of famous people or characters from TV and movies.   These are the ones that I saw (March 2016).

below: Two portraits side by side.  On the right, from the TV series, The Avengers, Patrick Macnee as John Steed with Diana Rigg as Emma Peel.   On the left is #wooshinism  If I google that, I get photos of this portrait that people have posted on instagram.

two street art portraits, on the right is character from the TV shaw the Avengers

below: The title on this one has been covered over I’m afraid.  Any ideas?

A couple, man and woman, portraits by Paul Don Smith, street art

below: Telly Savalas as  police detective Kojak, a TV series from the 1970’s.  “Who loves ya baby” was one of his catchphrases.

Kojak portrait, from the TV series, by Paul Don Smith

below: Statham, or Jason Statham, actor.  Kiss kiss bang bang.

street art portrait of a man with a gun to his head, Statham,

below: “The Message” a portrait of Malala, referring to Malala Yousafzai, a Pakistani advocate for education for women and the youngest ever Nobel laureate.

portrait of Malala, by Paul Don Smith, street art, on a door

below: And one I don’t know.  Do you?

portrait of a woman, street art by Paul Don Smith in London, on a door

 

 

people on Fashion Street

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The Fairy Goth Mother store stands at the corner of Commercial St and Fashion St in London E1.  First the bright blue caught my eye and then the name of the store made me smile.  When I walked this area back in March 2016 I saw a lot of graffiti and and street art on Fashion St and I took the following pictures.

A storefront in a line of brick buildings, at an intersection, with blue wood window frames and door frame, a woman is walking past. the store is called, L and L, Fairy Goth Mother

below: Why so serious?  Joker’s face by Syd, one of a number of pieces (and people) together on a brick wall.

street art painting of the joker's face up close, bright red mouth, other features in black on white, with the words, Why so serious? bySyd

a wall in Fashion street, London E1, with a painting of the jokers face and some paste ups

below: Is this Liza Minelli?  Or someone else?

large paste up of woman standing, looks like Liza Minelli in red and white striped long top and black leggings, red shoes, on a brick wall

below: Wrapped up in Yves Saint Laurent.

detail of a paste up of a woman in a head scarf made of fabric with the Yves Saint Laurent logo all over it and a child, in grey tones

below: Another wall in Fashion Street.  Close ups of some of the graffiti are in the following 2 photos.

a man walks past a wall that is covered with stickers and paste ups graffiti and street art in Shoreditch London

below: Stikki peaches James Dean paste up man, Rebel with a cause.  A purple beaver, pistachio shell art, and can you spot David Bowie?  Hint, check the telephone.

stylized animal paste up by Costah, small blue beaver head, man paste up by stikki peaches, and other graffiti stickers and paste ups on a wall

below: The background of the collage is a page from the ‘Financial Times’ of 27 June 2012.  The white strips of paper have words printed on them, the same words over and over again, “UR SO PORNO BABY if you want it”.  The small white poster on the right says, “Danger, Community Support in the area: screwing the community and attacking the vulnerable”.

collage on newspaper, face, the word Baby many times, in a black outline

below: A mural on the side of Joe’s Kid Cafe, painted by Jimmy C.   It features the owner, Danni as a three year old child with her grandfather Joe.  Joe also ran a cafe in East London back in the 1930’s.

A man hugging a young girl, Joe's Kid is the title,

below: A person (Michael Jackson?) constructed of other people’s faces.   An interesting concept.  I don’t recognize all the constituent faces and perhaps they aren’t all famous people, but I can see Mohammad Ali, John Travolta, the Bee Gees and possibly Grace Jones.  The printed text on his T-shirt is more “UR SO PORNO BABY if you want it”.  The rant in grey on black is as follows:  Now you can’t stop me even thought (sic) U think that if U block me you’ve done UR thing and when you bury me underneath all UR pain I’m steady laughing while surfacing baby I’ve got what it takes and there’s no way u’ll ever get me.”

a street art peice in the shape of a person walking, made up of a collage of pictures of people's heads

 

Two paste ups on a wall, a running wolf with hind legs outstretched to the back, and a woman in an orange and black outfit

street art, collage woman's face with an eyeball in her mouth, scrawled letters of Howl Owl and a white rectangle with two black ovals,

below: Beside #31, Eastco Industrial Wear Ltd.  She has been since painted over with a mural by the same artist – another woman’s face but in purple tones.

a mural of a woman's face in profile on a wall, many colours, long hair, maroon background,

altered street signs, Paris

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As you walk around Paris, you see a lot of altered street signs that are witty and well done such as this no right turn sign that has been changed into the Eiffel Tower.

graffiti altered sign, no left turn arrow turned into the eiffel tower

They are the work of Clet Abraham.

graffiti altered no entry sign, red circle with a white horizontal bar - added a figure that looks like it's struggling to pick up the bar

graffiti altered no entry sign, red circle with a white horizontal bar - added face on right side, lines on bar to make it look like an arm and a fist, punching the face

graffiti altered no entry sign, red circle with a white horizontal bar - added a policeman leaning over it, with hearts

graffiti altered no entry sign, red circle with a white horizontal bar - added figures to make the bar look like the front windshield of a car

graffiti altered no entry sign, red circle with a white horizontal bar - added eyes and nose above the bar, bar now looks like a mouth

graffiti altered no entry sign, red circle with a white horizontal bar - added a black hand that looks like it's squeezing the middle of the bar

graffiti altered square dead end sign where the T has been made into a crucifixtion, black figure of Jesus on it.

graffiti altered triangular sign of two kids running while holding hands, a finger is pointing at them, through clouds from the top of the triangle

There are some signs that have been altered by other people

graffiti altered no entry sign, red circle with a white horizontal bar - added a pasteup of a woman sitting, wearing purple robe and slippers and holding a white stuffed bear

…. some rather hastily done.

graffiti altered no entry sign, red circle with a white horizontal bar - added blue spray paint happy face

I also saw a couple of speed bump warning signs altered by M1000.

blog_sign_speed_bump_wave

blog_sign_speed_bump

Quite a few signs have random stickers stuck on them.

blog_sign_one_way_monkeys

graffiti altered triangular sign of two kids running while holding hands, blue circle stickers have been put over their heads

And then there is this sign, totally covered.

graffiti altered no entry sign, red circle with a white horizontal bar - added stickers that totally cover the sign

Other altered sign pages:
Florence
London
Madrid

Fishers Lane, Fitzroy

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Photos taken of the graffiti and street art in Fishers Lane back in February.

below: Welcome to Bali, vol II by BMD, being drawn with a pencil, and it comes complete with a pink earthworm crawling through the mural and the building.

muralby BMD on the upper level of a red brick building. Cigarette box shaped box, front is green with a picture of an little island with one little palm tree and a large earthworm coming out of the sand. a large pencil is seen drawing the picture

below: Garfield gets in on the act too. He’s writing on the walls “Nothing but Trouble”

street art mural of Garfield the Cat holding a marker and writing on the wall, Nothing but Trouble

below: A mural by Drew Funk, Deb and Monkey the roller derby women.

a mural showing two women ready for roller derb

below: Part of the alley, with another mural by Drew Funk in the foreground.

view of a lane with graffiti and street art on both sides

below: Even though this paste up is fraying at the edge, it still looks interesting. The interaction of two people in blank masks.

fraying paste up (large) of two people in blank masks. One is seated. The other is reaching out to him or her, on a brick wall in an alley

below: Four square pieces of wood, each with an insect – or at least I assume that the one on the left once had an insect on it.  The mosaic piece looks like something invader would make, but as far as I know he hasn’t been in Melbourne.  It may also be a character from a video game?

four square pieces of wood mounted on a wall, each with a picture of an insect. Above it is a creature, walking on two legs, made of black and blue mosaic tiles

below: Paste up, a woman in profile, on the open hand of a woman – herself?

small black and white paste up of an open hand holding a round shape with a woman's head in profile in it.

below:  A suited man with a bird in a birdcage instead of a head, at the rear of 285 Brunswick.  It is signed javer.

paper pasteup of a black and white drawing of a man's torso with a birdcage instead of a head. One black bird in the cage. It's on a door with lots of scribbles graffiti and a sign that says 285

below:  Two more javer pasteups.  Another man with a replaced head as well as a misfit woman.

2 paste ups on a boarded up space on a wall. One is a person with a black t shirt with the word Misfits on it. The other is a man sitting on a stool but instead of a head he has the speaker part of an old gramophone

below: One more javer paste-up.  This time it’s all about water, water falling from the sky and small puddles below.  The words written on the background paper are definitions of scientific terms dealing with liquids, terms such as dew point and absolute humidity.

paste up of a black silhouette of a man holding an umbrella and walking through large rain drops.

below: A bird by Sugar, a street artist who likes to paint murals of animals.

mural of a large bird head, light grey head, blue and black beak, brown body feathers, sign by sugar, on a white wall in an alley

below: At first I thought the title of this piece is Lost the Plot, but that’s actually the moniker used by the artist who painted this.

street art in teals and magenta, with words written small in the corner 'Lost the Plot' signature seems to be NCWB

below:  Unfortunately I can’t figure out who the artist is for this one.
a large text street art piece in black, white and red, on a fence,

below: He looks at the world through a different set of lenses.

graffiti and street art on a wall, some scrawls and scribbles but also one man's face, wearing glasses with red and white concentric circles instead of lenses

below: This sad looking girl was hiding in a very narrow space.

paste up of a black drawing on white, a girls head with very long hair looks over the top of a group of high rise buildings, cloud ans round sun behind her

below: A little hummingbird hovering on the wall.

a stencil in teal and black of a hummingbird hovering

below: Another view of the lane.

the backs of buildings in a lane. An old wood fence, with a tree behind it. A taller white building among some shorter buildings. sunny day, blue sky, Melbourne Australia.

below: Babushka dolls paste up

2 large paper paste ups of babushka doll shaped women. One with eyes open and smiling and the other with eyes closed.

Starchild Stela

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As seen around Montreal on the weekend of 14-16 June 2015

below: first, an oldie on a page from a French book.  I’m not sure what book it is, but it includes the words “protège la virilité de l’époux” which translate to “protects the virility of husband“

Starchild Stela character, a girl with shoulder length and slightly curly hair, drawn on a page of an old book whose words are in french.

Using stickers, paste ups, and spraypaint, Starchild Stela is a graffiti artist who combines cute feminine characters with slogans.  I’d like to say that they are ‘common sense’ slogans but unfortunately they aren’t.  For example:

“my body, my choice”

Starchild Stela character, a girl with shoulder length and slightly curly hair, two girls in the center of a doily, with the words 'my body, my choice'

and “consent is mandatory”

Starchild Stela character, a girl with shoulder length and slightly curly hair, sticker on a window, pale pink background with pink bows in a pattern, with the words 'consent in mandatory'

and “support survivors”

Starchild Stela character, a girl with shoulder length and slightly curly hair, black and white sticker of a number of girls in a group (5) with the words 'support survivors'

“destroy rape culture”

Starchild Stela character, a girl with shoulder length and slightly curly hair, paper on a wall, peeling and only part of it is still visible, painted pink,

“leave me alone”

Starchild Stela character, a girl with shoulder length and slightly curly hair, sticker on a grey metal pole, pale pink background with little pink bows pattern, with the words 'leave me alone' written under it

“gender studies”

Starchild Stela character, a girl with shoulder length and slightly curly hair, in yellow on a red brick wall, with a word bubble that says gender studies

Starchild Stela character, a girl with shoulder length and slightly curly hair, large painting in blue on a red brick wall with the words Stela Aurure Nila scrawled in black beside it.

Starchild Stela character, a girl with shoulder length and slightly curly hair, painted in pink on a red brick wall with the words femme malia written in cursive beside it

lovebot goes to Montreal (2015)

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Lovebot went to Montreal for MuralFest 2015

He was spotted all over town!

below: Spelling it out, L O V E high on a wall.

four large wheatpaste pieces high on a brick wall. Lovebot in profile facing right makes an L, then a lovebot facing forward for O, then a lovebot heart for V and finally another lovebot in profile, with arm sticking out, to make E.

below: Out for a walk with lovebat (babybot with wings?) flying behind.

wheatpaste lovebot walking, with small lovebat? or baby bot with bat wings, flying behind

below: He was seen hanging out with some of the locals….

a small lovebot wheatpaste on a wall above some street art painted creatures, one cat like animal in red and one pinkish creature with long green hair.

below: or with friends

a large lovebot as part of a large painted mural on a wall.

below: Or just hanging around by himself

lovebot wheatpaste on a red brick wall on a building at the entrance to an alley

lovebot wheatpaste on a red brick wall with lots of hydro wires and cables

below: Because not all the locals were friendly!

A light grey lovebot sticker beside a sticker of a girl with bandana over the lower part of his face and she is pointing her rifle at lovebot. The sticker of the girl is by Enzo Sarto and his name on it.

large wheatpaste paste up lovebot on a wall about a street art painting of a rooster who also has a heart on his body

black lovebot sticker on the blue part of a Bell payphone

a black lovebot sticker on a black pole with a bike parked against that pole and a pink and purple mural of faces behind in the background

honouring Charlie Hebdo

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On a wall on rue Gaby Sylvia in the 11th arrd. of Paris, there are five small portraits of  men who died in the terrorist attack on Charlie Hebdo, the French satirical magazine, 7 January 2015.

below:  Stephane Charbonnier, editor

small portrait of a man on a wall. Hand drawn head and shoulder shot, framed with tiny pieces of mosaic tile - Charb

below: Five portraits on a wall, by Moreje aka Jerome Gulon

On a light brown stucco wall, sign for rue Gaby Sylvia, as well as 5 small portraits frames in tiny mosiac tiles

below: Bernard Verlhac ‘Tignous’, cartoonist

small portrait of a man on a wall. Hand drawn head and shoulder shot, framed with tiny pieces of mosaic tile - Tingous

below: Jean Cabut, cartoonist

small portrait of a man on a wall. Hand drawn head and shoulder shot, framed with tiny pieces of mosaic tile - Cabo

below: Philippe Honore, cartoonist

small portrait of a man on a wall. Hand drawn head and shoulder shot, framed with tiny pieces of mosaic tile - Honore

below: Georges Wollinksi, cartoonist

small portrait of a man on a wall. Hand drawn head and shoulder shot, framed with tiny pieces of mosaic tile - Wollinski

Elliott Street, Melbourne

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Street art on Elliott Street, Fitzroy,
photos taken February 2016

below: irate on a brick wall.

large text graffiti that says IRATE, purple on the top and blue on the bottom, on a brick wall on the side of a building.

below: Birdies for lunch.

two garbage bins and a motorcycle in front of a mural on a grey wall. Mural is of a large rhino with its mouth open, trying to catch birds in its mouth, two leaping lemurs and leaping away from the rhinocerous.

below: Super Lemur?  Super Animal of some sort?

street art painting of an animal with a black and white striped tail, wearing a fuzzy white band around its head, and a red cape. Also wearing a shirt with a big S on it.

below: And pigs can fly – so too can others by the looks of it.

a mural of an assortment of animals on a grey wall. a ladybug, two flying pigs,

flying creature with bird body and human face, holding a drink with a straw in one hand.

a street art painting of a ghetto blaster with speakers that look like round eye, tiny legs with sneakers and arms with big white hands.

a white car is parked on a street in front of a long wall with street art on it, two tags, or text graffiti and a ghetto blaster painting.

mural up high on the side of a building, a man amongst magenta trees.

below: You are all the same, times four.

mural up high on the side of abuilding, a man amongst magenta trees. below it are two garage doors covered with graffiti

below: A green squirrel with a knotty nut.

tiny green stencil squirrel on a wood fence. A knot hole in the wood looks like a nut in the paws of the squirrel

Two paper paste-ups, a teapot and a mug. Both have faces on them. The teapot is pouring tea into the mug.

Alice’s wonderland mural

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In an alley near rue Mont Royal and rue Saint Denis is a mural based on the characters from the story of Alice in Wonderland – the white rabbit worrying about the time, a grinning cheshire cat who rises above it all, human playing cards, and a dopey looking hookah smoking caterpillar.  (photos spring 2015)

part of an Alice in Wonderland mural in a Montreal alley, looking down along the wall that the mural is on, a pink and white striped grinning cheshire cat sitting on a floating leaf.

part of an Alice in Wonderland mural in a Montreal alley, looking down along the wall that the mural is on - a sleepy fat caterpillar sitting beside a large light blue hookah

part of an Alice in Wonderland mural in a Montreal alley, looking down along the wall that the mural is on, there are also a number of colourful text tags in the mural

part of an Alice in Wonderland mural in a Montreal alley, looking down along the wall that the mural is on - an anxious looking white rabbit with a large pocket watch in his hand, wearing black bowtie

part of an Alice in Wonderland mural in a Montreal alley, looking down along the wall that the mural is on - red mushrooms at the bottom of the picture so it looks like they are growing in the alley. They are partially obscured by green weeds that have grown in front of the painting.

part of an Alice in Wonderland mural in a Montreal alley, looking down along the wall that the mural is on - three playing cards, the Ace, 2 and 3 of spades, as young men in black caps and tights, large cards for their bodies