below: The first of two cats by Missmam (aka Marie-Anne Montfort) whose Instagram page says: “Street Chats pour le plaisir et autres curiosités pour la beauté”. On the right, a girl with long blond braids by Nevoul Art (the Little Street Art Fairy).
below: Missmam, another “La chat fortune” but this time, the lucky cat is getting a bouquet of tulips and balloons from an amorous seahorse by Industrie Tarte. This lippocampe comes ready to divide into sections – filet, plat de cotes, bavette, flanchet – which are all cuts of meat.
below: “Trust, live, love” on a little heart
below: She’s slightly fuzzy in this photo I’m afraid, she also appears on a number of European walls. Street art by seiLeise (aka Tom Ossege)
Graffiti and street art seen while walking along the Seine in Paris.
below: Woof woof! Yes Paris!
below: Multi-coloured by Tremos, Peruvian artist living in France
below: At Voie sur Berge (Passerelle Léopold Sedar Senghor), in the 7ème, is this long mural by Michael Beerens titled “Plastique” – it is a comment on the state of our oceans.
The title is French but the word in the mural is English, “plastic”.
below: Honey bear by fnnch. There are quite a few of these around Paris and I blogged about them in June of 2022, Honey Bears.
Swallows in flight; swallows with little white halos.
below: A “My dog sighs” sticker beside a portrait of a woman with very orange hair.
below: A small black and white cat by Copycat, an “anonymeows streetartist” who has painted hundreds of cats.
below: Another Copycat cat…
below: ….. and yet another, on a multi coloured background
below: Another Copycat cat… this time it has a companion, another orange headed woman. She is surrounded by an intricate design and is the work of OJA.
below: Re-using many, many can lids – beer cans, pop cans, drink cans.
below: Are three heads better than one?
below: A sassy blue monkey with a pink heart bum.
below:Mr. Djoul is an artist who creates mosaics, especially of this little green-eyed alien creature
below: Invader mosaic? And in the lower left corner, bright red hair and words that say “My weariness in longing”
below: From the description beside the photo: “Ho–[torn] made a famous photograph of a dying soldier which became anti war icon since 1930s. Later it was proven to be a staged image on which nobody really died… From Russian diaries of Krapiva Netleva” [krapiva is the Russian word for nettle]
A collection of slaps, pasteups and stickers, on a wall in Montmartre, with a large green crocodile (or alligator?) head in the middle. Maybe it’s Krok.
below: A Gameboy … The 9 of clubs says that it’s all smoke and fucking mirrors by Broken Hartist … the climate change slogan that crops up all over theplace “There is no Planet B”.
below:The Postman has done many pieces with artists and celebrities on spray paint cans similar to this one featuring Jim Morrison. He died in 1971 but his fame lives on.
below: Little Miss Tickles? or Sunshine? or something similar, along with Tropa do Carallo which turns out to be the name of a band.
below: Batman and Robin in an amorous pose on a sticker by Brazilain artist Eraquario, a portrait of Diana Ross by Narotones, and a big green teddy bear by Keja Creation.
below: Half hidden behind a bandana. painted on the page of a book where the last lines are, “J’entends le feu parler en raint de tiedeur. J’entends un homme dire qu”il n’a pas souffert” (translation: “I hear the fire speak in warmth, I hear a man say that he did not suffer”). It is a poem, ‘Dit de la Force et de l’Amour’ by Paul Eluard.
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.
On a Paris wall, I saw graffiti posters by Street Art Rebellion, a group of 48 artists and 18 partner organizations. Their Conquistador is sailing blind, he has his binoculars but he’s covered his eyes. They have produced many posters like this for their #loveplanet project, many of which can be seen on their Instagram page. Mankind’s relationship with nature and other such environmental issues feature heavily. Eight of the nine posters shown here start with a quote that is then illustrated.
below: A closer look at three of the posters. From left to right: 1. “L’homme a mange la terre” by JB Fressoz [translation: Man ate the Earth] 2. “Si vous pensez vraiment que notre environnement est moins important que nore economie, essayez juste d’arreter de respirer le temps de compter votre argent” by Guy McPherson (promoter of Near-Term Human Extinction, which predicts human extinction by 2026 [translation: “If you really think our environment is less important than our economy, just try to stop breathing while you count your money.] 3. “Si vous n’avez pas peur, c’est que vous n’avez pas compris” by Rob Hopkins (English activist and writer on environmental issues) [translation: If you’re not afraid, you don’t understand]
below: Two posters 1. left: “Maintenant, la seule croissance que nous supportons sera celle des arbres et des enfants” quote by Alain Damasio [translation: “Now the only growth we support will be trees and children] 2. right: “C’est une triste chose de songer que la nature parle et que genre human n l’ecoute pas” quote by Victor Hugo [translation: “It’s a sad thing to think that nature speaks and that mankind does not listen to it.]
below: “Tout seul plus vite ensemble plus loin” Extinction Rebellion [translation: All alone faster, together further]
below: “A l’echelle planetaire, cent multinationales sont responsables de 70% des emission de gaz efffet de serre” Manuel Cervera_Marzal [translation: On a planetary scale, one hundred multinationals are responsible for 70% of greenhouse gas emissions”]
There are many little collections like this one all over Paris. Let’s take a closer look at what’s here…..
below: Chic! with fabulous earrings and a heart shaped mouth, a woman by StoEYES, along with a pile of yellow rubber duckies from canards_vagabonds (aka Sylvie Gennerat) and a babydolls life,
below: A flowa, a single flowa in a little flowa pot.
below: She’s got green eyes, blue hair, and a smile on her face – by Nevoul Art (La petite Fée du Street Art) On the right was a little painting by G❤️ArT but unfortunately it’s been blacked out.
below: A complex drawing in black and white by Juliette Savaëte aka Dessin nomade below what appears to be a man’s body with a cat’s head. But it’s damaged so it’s hard to tell exactly what’s going on.
below: More black lines and another portrait by Juliette Savaëte this time his name is Raoul.
In a small park at Place Salvador Allende (7th arr.) there is a yellow Paris post office mailbox on which there are some portraits by C215 (aka Christian Guemy). Guemy has painted tributes to many people including some on other yellow post office boxes. The box pictured here is close to the Musee de l’Ordre de la Liberation (located in the Hotel National des Invalides) and features people seen in the museum who played a role in the French Resistance during WW2.
below: Gabriel Brunet de Sairigné (1913-1948) was an army officer in the French Foreign Legion. He died “in the line of duty” in Vietnam on 1st March 1948.
below: Marcelle Henry (1895-1945) was active in the Resistance during WW2 and is one of the six women recognized among the “Compagnons of the Liberation”. She was arrested by the Gestapo in 1944 and sentenced to death but spent the remaining months of the war in concentration camps. She lived to see freedom but died shortly after from the effects of her incarceration.
below: Simone Michel-Levy (1906-1945) was also a French Resistance worker. She had quite a few aliases including Emma, Françoise, Madame Royale, Mademoiselle Flaubert or Madame Bertrand. She too is one of the six women recognized among the “Compagnons of the Liberation”. She was arrested by the Gestapo in November 1943 and sent to a concentration camp. At the camp she help organize an uprising against the guards. She was hanged for this – 10 days before the camp was liberated.
The wall that lines the whole of rue Henri Nogueres (a pedestrian street) has been repainted many times. In March of 2023 this is what it looked like. Most of it is a grande fresque by Black Lines titled “Colère Générale” (General Anger), painted in February 2023.
Black Lines is an artist collective whose Instagram page uses the phrase “au service des luttes (in the service of struggles)” to describe what they do. All of these murals are in black and white.
below: Greve Generale = General Strike There were a number of one day strikes in France in January, February, and March of 2023. Most of the protest was against President Emmanuel Macron’s pension reforms including raising the legal retirement age from 62 to 64.
below: Berthet One painted this section and there is a lot going on here. “I can’t breathe” are the words that became synonymous with George Floyd, a Black man killed by a white policeman in the USA, but here it is a KKK member that is being strangled.
below: La rue, les urnes ou les armes (= The street, the ballot boxes or the weapons)
below: Bandana masked protester
below: His molotov cocktail is lit and ready to throw. Painted by Jack Ardi.
below: According to this image by C.MoA FarFad, “It will be fine. It will be fine. It will be fine”. Are they destroying Capitalism?
below: More of the wall. The woman in the foreground was painted by GRNDR. It is a portrait of Lisetta Vallet, an Italian partisan who fought in the Resistance during WW2.
below: “Le ruissellement a bien lieu, il se fait du bas vers le haut = runoff is taking place, it is done from bottom to top 80 milliards is 80 billion mefiez vous des fleurs = beware of flowers … All in a piece by Michael Peronard
My apologies to Lise Rousset Lesieur who painted the portion with the flowers as I didn’t get a picture of her whole section.
below: Sedition is the solution.
below: “Nous étions debout et nous ne le savions pas” (We were up and we didn’t know it).
below: Part of the wall has been tagged already
below: A skull with the words “vanité va niquer toi” and when I used google translate I discovered that I have just learned new words to swear in French (although vanité is just vanity).
below: On the pavement by your feet, praying with her rosary is this woman by Aort (this is not a Black Lines piece).
At one end of the wall there is painting, also in grey tones, that pre-dates the Black Lines painting by a few months.
below: On the right hand side is a section of calligraphy in black and white by Johnnys Artwork aka Johnny Ashbaugh
below: Using the calligraphy as a background, a portrait of a woman was painted by Bandit Graffiti. Originally she was smoking a cigarette.
Photos taken March 2023
other Black Lines artists involved in the wall: Rebus, CROS, and Damien Roudeau
Eyes on the Streets 