A number of artists created this tribute to David Jude Jolicoeur, who rapped as Trugoy the Dove in the trio De La Soul. He passed away in February 2023 at the age of 54. It was painted during the 2023 Bushwick Block Party this past summer and involved a number of artists (Enjoy Hads, Six Million Dollar Steve, Mr. Makro, Brandy, and Sure78 and more? )
below: On one of the walls there is a portrait of Biggie Smalls (1972-1997) also known as The Notorious B.I.G., a rapper and hip hop artist who was born and raised in Brooklyn. It was painted by Danielle Mastrion
below: Up high on the roof, figures by stik, holding hands and looking down at passers by.
A mural by Joel Artista, aka Joel Bergner in the East Village neighbourhood of New York City. Painted in 2019. Joel is a co-founder of Artolution, a non-profit organization supporting local artists and arts programs with vulnerable children around the world.
For this mural, Artolution partnered with KIND (Kids in Need of Defense), We Are Royale, Key Food Supermarket, and Education Alliance.
Photos taken August 2023
More Manhattan murals were featured previously in this blog – Kobra on 10th Ave (from 2022)
below: Sometime between 2018 and 2022, a large wall was built using old shipping containers. If you use street view on google maps there is a section that still shows images captured in 2018 where there is no wall at Kent & Clymer. There is now graffiti on the containers.
below: Small sticker on an already spray painted area with a sparkly, positive message, “It will all be okay”.
below: Just a little black bear.
below: Slightly misshapen but also intriguing.
below: There are a lot of containers!
below: Either it was the word on, or a word that ended with on. Your choice.
below: “Do not remove” and “Jesus saves”
below: Another angle.
below: If you don’t have a sticker, a band-aid will do?
below: Sarkarbeats image of the Taj Mahal along with the purple character with the funny head whose name is DPac. He has his own instagram page – DPac explores
below: Simple yet menacing.
below: Face pareidolia is the illusion of seeing faces in objects, or in this case, in the rips and tears of old paper. Quite the fancy red dress that she’s wearing!
below: Dollar signs on green
below: A lot of the graffiti was colourful but wasn’t more that scrawls or tags. My apologies to the men and women who made them, but I wasn’t very interested in them. If I took photos of every tag, I’d be swamped. Instead, I played with the lines, colours, and textures.
below: Sold Out Art Show sticker, face with multiple sets of eyes
below: Hydration Guy
below: There is a break in the wall for the exit from Steiner Studios and this is where you realize that there is a studio lot behind the wall.
Photos taken August 2023.
You can find more graffiti by Sold Out Art Show on a previous blog past from late August
…. or perhaps humans in cat costumes. Love and peace and a frilly tutu.
below: More cats, cats climbing up the wall, signed by eunice.music (aka Eunice Brito) and kosuke_james
below: A concerned looking cat – maybe the ball and chain around his leg is going to be a problem?
below: The yellow and red background pattern was painted by 7 Line Art Studio (aka Duel Ris) and I suspect that the dog was added later by someone else.
below: A second dog, this one in bold shapes and bright primary colours.
Re-visiting Rochester to see how some of their older murals have fared.
400 Atlantic Ave. is a brick building that parallels the railway tracks. It was built in 1920 as an Ice Block Factory to service rail cars but has since been converted to offices and storage space.
The view at street level and still looking good – Abstract shapes stretch out along Atlantic in a painting by Italian artist Peeta, aka Manuel Di Rita.
below: On the other side of the building, is Aaron Li-Hill’s “Together we Fall” from 2015 Wall Therapy event.
Across the driveway, at 410 Atlantic –
Perhaps these squares aren’t really considered “street art” as they are more in keeping with the building’s prior use as a children’s centre/school,
but they do help to brighten up an otherwise dull and ordinary section of the street.
below: Brazilian artist Eder Muniz’s mural features vibrantly coloured animals and fantasy creatures dancing and swimming along the wall in their own little parade Blue of water; blue of air.
below: One of the most human-like character in the mural carries a long serpentine pennon in front of an elephant that is either eating a tree or that has tusks growing into trees. Â
below: At the rear of the parade, a hummingbird (or similar small bird) rides on the back of the elephant.
below: A host of creatures in the mural’s mid-section – walking, sitting, swimming, floating.
below: Humanoid body; leaf head, all smaller than the long skinny bird legs.
below: Instead of leaves, this little guy has a head full of crystals.
below: Faces on creatures of fantasy. One with plumage like a bird and the other with squiggles and curls like nothing else. Eyes closed. Big lips.
below: Swimming together, a greenish fish and a striped snake.
below: More fish swimming in the blue bubbles.
below: Taking the lead in this little parade is a large green beaked bird character. Following along with the fish and the snake is a snail and a pinkish purple frog. There even seems to be a scuba diver.
below: Here’s a closer look at that grinning frog as well as the spotted iguana beside it.
below: And last, the long finned fish gracefully makes it way through the watery blue.
On Crouch Street in Rochester NY, this large face stares out at passers-by. When it was painted by Vexta in 2015, there was a lot more vibrant pink and red in it. What is now pale yellow used to be closer to neon green and yellow.
Time passes and colours fade, but the eyes still stare relentlessly ahead.
Murals in the central part of the city. Some old and some new.
below: Conor Harrington headless duellng men, or one man against himself?
below: It looks like a small blue whale inside a larger transparent whale. It’s called “Detecting Machine” and it was painted by Nevercrew, a pair of artists, Pablo Togni and Christian Rebecchi.
below: Be stronger than your excuses, under the bridge
below: Be yourself, everyone else is already taken
below: ‘The Giant Storybook Project’ by Herakut, painted Oct. 2012, on St. Paul Street
All pictures taken May 2023 except the bottom photo which is from 2015. The mural is still there but I didn’t take another picture of it when I was in Rochester a couple of months ago.
This is another post about some of the murals seen around Rochester. As you may have noticed, there are many!
below: A small tree grows in front of a mural of stripes, rectangles, and other shapes
below: What big feet you have!
below: That foot, and the skin tight boot, belongs to this man, the creation of Swedish artist Andreas Englund who likes to paint people in grey superhero outfits with scanty red pants. This was part of Wall/Therapy 2015.
below: The abstract painting in greens and blues is the work of Nova.
below: Skull surrounded by moths, butterflies and flowers that seem to be growing out of it in a work titled “Cosmos” by Nico Cathcart as part of Wall/Therapy. Painted in Sept 2021.
below: Letters and symbols
below: Pink face but with only one visible eye, by Sam Rodriguez, 2014.
below: Omen (from Montreal) painted this woman lying on her side with her eyes closed.
below: The World is Yours by Queen Andrea (as in Letter Queen!), 2014.
below: Super Fresh
below: Mural by Pixel Pancho, a boy embracing a robot that has seen better days.
below: “Mother” by Maxxer242 aka Max Gramajo, painted in Sept 2021
below: Another mural featuring text.. A Word is an Image, by Shoe aka Niels Shoe Meulman. Image is written in very large letters spread out across the black wall.
below: Four quadrants of an eye and cheekbone is all that remain of a once larger mural by Daze aka Chris Ellis.
Photos taken May 2023
Some of these murals appeared in an earlier blog post titled, “murals, Rochester NY” from Dec 2015.
Eyes on the Streets 