Exitenter is a street artist whose work can be seen all over Florence (his home town).
I discovered his work when I was in Florence early in 2020 before COVID blew the world up and you can find some photos from that time at: first Exitenter post,
below: Dancing with the ladies
below: The original was climbing the walls before the red crayon guy came along and gave him something to draw with….
below: Taking flight on a Florentine horse, a religious horse at that. A perfect companion for a night of painting.
below: And baby makes three!
below: Standing on the shoulders of giants – lifting others up towards love
below: More lifting up, more red crayon guy.
below: Fly away
below: Crossed swords
below: I wanted to make a reference to Mr. Ed here. He was a ‘talking’ horse in an American television sitcom in the first half of the 1960s. It was so long ago that it was filmed in black and white. But Mr. Ed didn’t have a television for head, his head was on TV.
below: Street people
below: Chasing balloons
below: He holds the key
below: The woman holding her heart is not the work of Exitenter, but the two little figures below her are. The woman was created by Sarcastic Collage.
below: Most of Exitenter’s drawings involve his little people, but not all…. Here is a simple jester’s hat and (graffiti symbol) crown.
below: Standing on love – he reached the summit after a long climb?
below: Another version of reaching for hearts and flying away. Where has love taken you? Where will it take you next?
below: Counting sheep – not a good time to fall asleep!
below: Breaking through the ceiling
below: Being crushed by a nasty white bar.
below: More nastiness, grabbing and squeezing this time.
below: As the sun breaks through the clouds…
below: Like weeds growing through crack in the pavement..
below: Two for one! Stop the bombs, guitar hero.
below: Yuck!
below: Holding onto the bar (faded, worn, from the original black hand)
below: Stuck
below: Hot!
below: This is one of the signs that I saw in Florence back in 2020. The policeman has faded since then as have the two little red hearts that he is looking at. A better copy of the image can be seen in altered street signs, Florence
Abraham is from Florence but his work can be seen in a number of places (along with others who have used traffic signs as their canvas). I have posted images from Madrid , and Paris in past years.
A small collection of graffiti has accumulated on Chiasso dei Baroncelli, a small street in central Florence. This is what it looked like the day I walked past….
below: This is a copy of “The Schoolgirl” by Swiss artist Albert Anker (1831-1910) with a couple of very subtle changes. The book that she’s holding now appears to be Chinese as does some of the lettering on her chalkboard.
below: The last few are black and white photos that the artist (WAP?) has then painted a part of – usually just one colour per print.
The previous post, Il Tempo Paso was about 2 murals in Comiso by artists Case Maclaim and Marak Morik. These two have also painted murals in nearby Ragusa.
below: “Familia” by Case Maclaim, 2024
below: Marak Morik, “On the way to Pescheria” (the fish market), 2017
…..and in the same area of the city is another mural, from FestiWall 2018, an abstract scene (is there a bird in there?) by Alexey Luka,
There are many other murals in Ragusa, spread out around the city and most are the product of the annual FestiWalls event. Because of limited time, I only had a chance to check out one more neighbourhood where I found three murals.
below: First, there was a very faded old mural by Fintan Magee; I think that it is a man with a prickly pear cactus.
below: A screen shot from Fintan Magee’s Facebook page – this is what “The Gardener” looked like back when it was painted in 2016 (ten years ago)
below:Agostino Iacurci, “Immobile” – pottery jugs, urns, and other vessels.
below:Evoka 1 (aka Elio Mercado), “Resistenza di Incertezza”, 2016, a young girl with an apple on her head as well as six or so more in her hands.
“Il Tempo Paso” refers to 2 murals that were painted in the Sicilian town of Comiso as part of the Ragusa Street Art Festival (FestiWall) in 2023 (Ragusa is a nearby city). It was a collaboration between Case Maclaim and Marak Morik.
Near the Mercato del Capo in the historic center of Palermo Italy there is a warren of small alleys. On a wall in one of these alleys is a small series of faded drawings or painting.
below: Two women’s portraits – a larger classical looking face with a smaller more modern woman in the top corner. The old stones and bricks add a layer of interest to the images that remain.
below: He’s painting a large face on the wall and it looks like he’s been doing it for a long time.
below: Painting at number1
below: Blue and red on old brick
below: The brickwork suggests there was once a small window here.
below: Let’s make peace with this nightmare – “Facciamo pace con glu incubi”. She is one of a few paper paste-ups that appear together on a section of wall in Naples (via Santa Maria di Constantinopoli)
below: This is that wall
below: This purple and black watercolour portrait is also included.
below: As are these women and their big yellow flower.
below: Immediately beside the above wall is this little Exit Enter figure and its bright red heart.
below: More red – this time on the other side of the wall.
There was far too much interesting graffiti and urban art seen in Naples to squeeze it all into one post. I have posted some previously and this post attempts to “finish” what I have from February 2024 – before I go back to Naples. Most of these images were taken while exploring the streets of the Spanish Quarter (Quartieri Spagnoli)
below: Electric! … but unplugged.
below: La Ditta Fortunato (The Lucky Company)
below: Zelda enshrined
below: Dancing in the dark
below: Superwomen sharing a pizza, street art by LiDieSis
below: Couple, staring into each other’s eyes.
below: A street scene in the Spanish Quarter
below: Graffiti paper wheatpaste by Lingual (I think that’s what it says), a man’s portrait in grey tones, with two small green snakes slithering out of his mouth. Is this a political statement? He’s designed like an antique stone bust and carefully positioned on top of a real stone plaque on a wall in Naples
below: Graffiti cat
below: Like the image above, here is another strange woman sniffing flower parts
below: More than one person has left their shoes here…. A runner with a stopwatch in lieu of a head.
below: Very big hands, skinny arms and legs, and a puffball rabbit tail?
below: A small section of Vico Toto where there are some paintings that pay tribute to Totò, the stage name of an Italian actor Antonio “Totò” De Curtis (1898-1967). You can see more of the works here, Toto and friends, an earlier blog post.
below: Life is short
below: Maradona (1960-2020) was a football hero to many and references to him are all over Naples. For more Maradona and football graffiti in Naples see “Football and the ‘cult’ of Maradona“
below: Let your phone blind you and suck your brains out! Graffiti by Inserra.
below: “Sempre la… stressa… cosa” or, in English, “Always there….stress… what” as he tries to balance a precarious load of chair, tire, fan, wine bottle, and more.
below: Punk chicken – except, don’t those feet look like a humn hand??
below: Outstretched hands encircle a shiny orb in a paper wheatpaste by Vivia Cirillo.
below: “mmm”Il faccio mordere” or “I’ll make him bite”
below: Monochrome portrait of a local rapper, Geolier (Emanuele Palumbo), who is from the Gescal neighborhood of Naples. It was painted by Salvatore Iodice.
below: Sophia Loren serves up a pizza and on the right is, apparently, San Gennaro – On September 19, 305 AD, the Bishop of Benevento, Gennaro, died in Pozzuoli, martyred along with 6 others. As for the fellow in the middle – I don’t know!
below: Cartoonish interaction between telephone and eyepiece, only a fragment remains.
below: Keyboard player
below: Cyop and Kaf painting high up on a wall. There are many examples of their work on the walls of Napoli! For more images, see Cyop & Kaf in Naples blogpost
Eyes on the Streets 