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”]
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.
Most of these are old murals. In fact they were painted in 2013 as part of a Wall Therapy event. Just beyond the wall is a newer painting (that replaces one from 2013).
below: “When reading was a crime I taught myself… When slavery was inflicted, I bought myself… when the internet arrived I lost myself… Finally I’ve acknowledged my ancestors and reclaimed the Earth AS MINE!”
There are a series of 5 paintings by Bone Head nestled between the windows of a building that backs onto Graffiti Alley in Toronto. As the name suggests, Bone Head painted characters with large boney heads or skulls. They also have a penchant for white shirts and striped neck ties!
Athens Ontario that is. This Ontario town has decorated its walls with murals for many years now. Some of the older ones have been painted over and some have been refurbished. Most tell stories about the history and people of the community.
below: Main Street in Athens, June 2023
below: A tribute to Joshua Bates and his founding of the community of Farmersville. Bates was a surveyor and an architect. He donated land and built schools, churches, and stores. The town was renamed Athens in 1888.
below: On the wall of the fire station is a mural titled ‘The Great Fire/Athens 1894’ – “Dawn, May 19, fire broke out on Victoria Street but quickly spread to Main Street. The new fire engine could not be used because its short hose brought it too close to the flames.”
“In an act of great heroism, Mr. J. Rosenbarker braved the flames to climb down into an unused well close behind the burning buildings to hand up water to a bucket brigade. Mr. Rosenbarker stayed at his post until the fire was finally conquered.”
below: The day that I was in Athens there were two large trucks parked alongside this mural so I couldn’t get any proper photos of it. It is a series of medallions showing local landmarks such as the House of Industry, Dr. Giles House, Quaker Meeting House, the mill, and the First Nations Market.
below: ‘The Gathering’ 2020 by Dave Sheridan. This replaces an earlier 1987 mural by Pierre Hardy which in turn replaced a small painting on canvas by Crawford Slack in 1927. The portrait in the oval frame, top right, is Crawford C. Slack. Crawford Chelson Slack was born in nearby Wiltsetown in 1855. He was a painter (and a poet and a musician).
“Needn’t talk ter me ‘bout livin’ in the city with its show, Druther live ‘mong these surroundin’s where the folks are rather slow… Where the golden summer sunset gilds the village church’s dome — There among the slantin’ shadows, I would druther have my home.” by Crawford Slack
below: A lazy afternoon by the lake, “Charleston Lake Picnic” by Noreen Mallory. Granite outcroppings, pine trees, and water, all very Ontario cottage country scenery.
below: Mallory’s family had a cottage nearby and summers spent there helped inspire this mural. Another inspiration was “Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe”, a painting by French Impressionist Édouard Manet (except there are no nudes in Mallory’s version).
below: Manet’s picnic painting of 1893
below: At the corner of Victoria and Main streets.
below: A pair of work horses busy on the farm, another mural by Dave Sheridan.
below: Paint cans – the mural was not quite finished the day that I was there. I’m sorry that I missed seeing it painted.
below: Brockville and Westport Railway. No signature. Former Athens railway station. The first train ran on B&W railroad in 1888 pulled by engines built at the Kingston Locomotive Works. The line was 45 miles long and had 16 stops.
It replaces an earlier 1987 mural by Lorrie Maruscak
below: Inside the Main Street Cafe is yet another mural, ‘Step into the Past’. It was painted by Sheila Ballantyne and Sergio Lopes.
below: A copy of an older mural that no longer exists is displayed on a fence. “This mural originally graced the hardware store on this site and was created in 1990 by Cathy McGuire. The border features alternating patterns of quilt squares and historic farm scenes. The center of the mural depicts farmers and a steam engine threshing the grain that separated the grain from the stem.”
below: Two large weathered photographs on display.
below: “Dedicated to the Canadian troops who trained in the Athens area and who served in the First World Ward (circa 1915).
below: Main Street, Athens, 1920.
below: Main Street is also represented by a mural that features some of the businesses that were established here.
below: The flag that the boy is holding is the version of the Canadian Red Ensign that was in use between 1922 and 1957.
below: Main Street 1910 (found on Wikipedia, original source Special Collections, Toronto Public Library. Photographer: H.R. Knowlton). The large brick building with the three awnings in front is home to three businesses, Thompson, Lamb, and Arnold like those in the mural.
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 