“The Vision of St. Dominic”, 2017, by Paulina Nawrot and Ola Adamczuk, one of three murals sponsored by the Dominican order of Łódź in honor of its 800th birthday.
below: Part of one of the other St. Dominic murals. There are three birds in the mural.
below: ‘Ptak” by Axl Studio, aka Alexander Mehlhorn, 2016
below: Chasing the bluebird but not quite able to catch it.
This is one of at least two murals in the village of Petty Harbour (on the east coast of Newfoundland). Like many of the historic murals in Newfoundland, it shows locals hard at work in the fishing industry – out in boats catching fish, on shore cleaning fish, maintaining nets, etc.
Painted in 2008, this mural depicts life in the early days of the fishing communities of Newfoundland. It is found on a retaining wall on Battery Road, one of the narrow hilly roads in the Outer Battery neighbourhood.
In an alley near Dovercourt and Queen West in Toronto are two garage door murals unlike any others.
below: ‘Elephancy’ by Zirco Fish – It’s an elephant but it’s not. Tusks like an elephant and the ears seem to be big a floppy. But the mouth is like a beak and the eyes are certainly not those of an elephant. A crazy fantastical creature, the product of someone’s imagination.
below: ‘Scrat Attack’ by Zirco Fish.
Before the second World War, about one quarter of the population of Kaunas LIthuania was Jewish – about 30,000 people. Known in Yiddish as Kovno, it was a city As part of the City Telling Festival (Istoriju Festivalis) in 2020 a couple of large murals were painted in memory of a few of these people. This festival was one of the events leading up to 2022 where Kaunas was one of the “European Capitals of Culture”
below: Leja (or Leah) Goldberg, b. 1911, poet. It was painted by Lithuanian artist Linas Kaziulionis and it measures 15 by 10 meters. The text is one of her poems “Oren” (Pine) written in Hebrew and Lithuanian.
Goldberg was the daughter of Abraham and Cilia Goldberg. Her father was an economist at an insurance company before WW1. During the Great War (i.e. WW1), most of the Jews were “evacuated” from Lithuania and sent to the interior of Russia. Lea was three years old when the family was forcibly deported from Kaunas. When they returned after the war and the defeat of Germany, Lea’s father was tortured by Lithuanian soldiers who accused him of being a Communist. He died before Lea emigrated to Palestine in 1935; her mother followed her the next year.
One translation of the poem:
Here I will not hear the voice of the cuckoo.
Here the tree will not wear a cape of snow.
But it is here in the shade of these pines
my whole childhood reawakens.
The chime of the needles: Once upon a time –
I called the snow-space homeland,
and the green ice at the river’s edge –
was the poem’s grammar in a foreign place.
Perhaps only migrating birds know –
suspended between earth and sky –
the heartache of two homelands.
With you I was transplanted twice,
with you, pine trees, I grew –
roots in two disparate landscapes.
below: Another mural with a poem that was also part of the same festival. It was painted by Tadas Vincaitis-Plūgas. The is mural dedicated to another Jewish family that lived in Kaunas before WW2.
The words are those of Hirsh Ošerovičius (1908-1994) written in 1964. The text is in Lithuanian but one English translation is:
Ah, do you really believe,
Oblivion has the final say in what is to be forgotten?
For it is often only an image from the ashes rising
And stand in flesh, in full reality
Forever framed for every day to come.
The mural depicts a mother, Greta, and her daughter Rosian Bagriansky. Rosian was born in 1935 in Kaunas. Her father, Paul (or Polis) Bagriansky, was a textile merchant and her mother was a concert pianist and music teacher. Rosian survived the Holocaust after her parents dug a hole next to the fence of Kaunas Ghetto and pushed Rosian through it and into the hands of one of their former employees, Bronė Budreikaitė. Rosian became Irena Budreikaitė
Back in 2014, Vytenis Jakas decided to turn a residential courtyard into an art gallery.
below: Charlie Chaplin oversees the entrance to the yard. The black plaque above Chaplin’s head is in memory of Juda Zupavicius (1914-1944) who was a lieutenant in the Lithuanian military and a chief on the Kaunas ghetto police force. In 1941 the Jewish residents of this area were forced out and had to relocate to the Kaunas ghetto. Zupavicius was also one of the leaders of the underground resistance during WW2.
below: The words under the photo of the couple: „Čia 1939 m. – 1941 m. gyveno Dita ir Juda Zupavičiai. Juda buvo vienas iš Kauno geto pogrindžio vadovų, žiauriai nacistų kankintas neišdavė geto vaikų slėptuvių. Dita buvo kovos bendražygė“ (English translation: “Here in 1939 – 1941 lived Dita and Juda Zupavičiai. Juda was one of the underground leaders of the Kaunas ghetto, he was brutally tortured by the Nazis and did not reveal the hiding places of the ghetto children. Dita was a comrade in the struggle”)
below: Venus probably never had to do the grocery shopping
Yard Gallery
Upon noticing that the neighbours living in the yard had become alienated and had forgotten the common past of the yard, the artist Vytenis Jakas started creating a “Yard Gallery” – a courtyard surrounded by apartment buildings built in the inter-war period. In the past, the yard inhabitants knew each other well, communicated warmly, celebrated holidays together, and supported each other in troublesome times. The yard had a large table, a fountain and a sculpture, the Dapkevicius sisters grew flowers, and lilacs grew near the windows of the neighbour Regina. Over time, the population and the social environment changes, the number of cars increased, and the yard space became too small.
Seeing this situation, Vytenis Jakas, with the help of other artists and neighbours, turned the derelict yard into a centre of attraction, the open air “Yard Gallery”. Various artistic projects are implemented here: Portraits of the Jews who lived in this house before the Holocaust, along with the current residents, characters of various works are painted on the facades of the apartment buildings; mirror mosaics and stained glass windows are created, and community events are organised, with community festivals celebrated together. “
There is a large mural on the the side of a school beside a small park (Ernst Lichtblau Park) and playground near the intersection of Einsiedlergasse and Siebenbrunnengasse. Because of the size of the mural as well as all the trees, playground equipment, and caged soccer field in front it, a proper picture of the whole mural was impossible. Instead, I have a series of photos taken from the musician playing the electric guitar depicted on the right to the different instruments on the left.
The mural was painted by El Jerrino, a Vienna based artist.
below: Hippity hipster rabbit with sunglasses and tatts.
below: Sargent Pepper theme, character in green with drums – Ringo Starr from the Beatles.
below: A second Sargent Pepper character but this time it’s George Harrison in yellow. I didn’t see the other Beatles but I wouldn’t be surprised if they are in the city somewhere.
below: A child rides on the back of a white goose as it flies in front of a boat. The boy, in the red hat, is Nils and he has been bewitched by an elf so that he is only a few inches tall. The goose is his transportation and together they have adventures. Nils saves the goose and some ducks from a hungry fox; he also rescues a baby squirrel from a hunter. The Nils books were written in the early 1900s by Selma Lagerlof (Swedish), the first woman to win a Nobel prize in literature.
below: Beavis and Butthead from the 1990s animated TV series.
below: Green Frankenstein.
below: Blue woman with a feather
below: His arms are covered with tattoos but the face has been defaced (or was very strange to begin with?) so I am having trouble figuring out who the character is.
below: Angry bird on the right, standing beside another hipster rabbit. The words stencilled on the box, “Nidermarrja e Dekorit Bashkia Tirane”, roughly translates to Decoration Enterprise, Tirana Municipality. There is a Dekori – Bashkia Tirane instagram page that features some of the artists whose works are found Tirane.
below: Chuck Norris
below: Quentin Tarantino.
below: A tiger growls at the passing traffic
below: An older man with many birds in his beard, inspired by a poem by Edward Lear:
” There was an Old Man with a beard,
Who said, “It is just as I feared!—
Two Owls and a Hen, four Larks and a Wren,
Have all built their nests in my beard.”
below: A rooster on a cat on a dog on a donkey in the night. This time it is a story that is referenced here, “The Town Musicians of Bremen”. Although the story dates from the 12th century it was first published in 1819 by the Brothers Grimm. It is the tale of 4 older animals no longer useful on their farms who meet up and decide to go to the city of Bremen to be musicians. They never get there but they have other adventures instead (you’ll have to read the story to get the details!)
below: Another story – here it is Peter Pan and the Darling children, Wendy, John, and Michael, flying off to Never Never Land.
below: Bob Marley in front of Hops.
New Dawn is the name given to the latest laneway street art mural painting project. It is a celebration of the 10th anniversary of StreetARToronto.
The alley runs parallel to Queen Street West (just west of Ossington); it crosses Brookfield and Fennings streets.
The largest mural of the project is a collaboration between five artists: Meagan Kehoe, Kreecha, Bacon, Sight, and Nick Sweetman.
This post also appears on the As I Walk Toronto blog.
… and rooster … and tractor.. paintings in Napanee Ontario.
Once used for storage, these silos were painted by Shane Goudreau as part of the redevelopment of the site – from County Depot to insurance company. An excellent way to preserve some of the history of the area.
Eyes on the Streets 