alleys | Eyes on the Streets

Owen Sound is a small pleasant Ontario town that is nice to wander around. It has more street art than one might expect from a town its size.

parking lot and alley behind shops in Own Sound, three storey brick buildings with street art murals along the bottom third.

below: Back in 2013, the Bleeding Carrot Cafe decided that the alley adjacent to the cafe needed some art and thus the Bleeding Carrot Alley Project was born. That summer, the exterior walls of the cafe (in the alley) were painted with street art murals. Most of them still exist. Although the Bleeding Carrot doesn’t seem to be in business any more, it has left behind a colourful legacy. The first part of this blog post is dedicated to those murals.

below: Brilliant red poppies painted by Andree Levie Warrilow

a young woman's face and some bright red poppies, a mural

below: This was the first mural that was painted in the alley, a boy and his toys.

below: Another from 2013, painted by Alan Glicksman … where everybody seems to be talking.

below: Keep on rockin’ downtown, bright yellow by Robert Menzies (also 2013).

below: More 2013 – a surreal scene by Marc Matei with a purple octopus (with more than 8 legs!) makes a headpiece for a surly looking man who has a shaggy beard and one big tooth.

street art mural, purple octopus, orange donkey, man with beard,

below: Portrait of Jim, by Jennifer Crawley (2013)

below: Logan Pellerin’s trippy trees and a rocky road that leads infinitely into the distance

below: Jana Miller painted these wavy rays of sunshine.

below: In later years (post-2013), the other side of the alley was also painted.

alley behind shops in Owen Sound, three storey brick buildings with street art murals along the bottom third.

below: An orange skull

below: “Vida” is a collaboration between artist Billy Goodkat and local high school students. Vida is the Spanish word for Life.

alley behind shops in Own Sound, three storey brick buildings with street art murals along the bottom third. Purple stripes

brown turtle partially submerged in water, face is above water street art painting

below: A large section of wall in Carney’s Lane is covered by this Owen Sound mural which is also known as the Koodoo mural.

street art mural with words, Owen Sound, and a pink bunny and a blue fish

below: The south wall of the Grey Gallery is covered by “Transformation” a large mural by Raquell Yang that was painted in the summer of 2020

mural painting along one wall, exterior, outdoors, of the Grey Gallery Garden. Two large blue whales across the top, two male portraits below with a large eye with butterfly wings between the men

below: There is a large mural behind the Roxy Theatre that was painted to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the theatre. It is composed of a number of theatre related vignettes. It is the result of a collaboration between a number of artists under the leadership of Billy Goodkat.

car in parking lot, parked in front of a large theatre themed mural painted on the back of a cinema

below: And last, I found a wall covered with Emily May Rose’s raccoons.

blue raccoon with a microphone, Emily May rose mural in Owen Sound

pink and blue raccoons, one playing a guitar, the others dancing on the stairs.

Photos taken July 2025.

Moooo…. Hey there good looking!… Here’s looking at you! This was painted by Poser. Usually he does bunny rabbits but I think that he’s pretty good at painting cows too!

For a number of years now, there has been a lot of street art and graffiti in an alley that runs behind the east side of Ossington starting at Queen Street and ending one block north at Humbert. Some of it is interesting; some is not. A few garages and walls look the same as they did 12 or 13 years ago so some of these photos may look similar to older photos used in this blog.

below: In the background, an untitled piece by Caratoes. It was one of 5 murals painted in Toronto in 2016 for the “Sea Walls: Artists for Oceans” series. In total, there were over 500 murals in 20 countries in this series.

below: Six lit matches ready to go. This crazy cat is up to something no good…

below: An early Birdo piece, although the scroll names or street artists too. The first street art in the alley dates from 2012 when a group of artists painted some of the garages here.

below: A pink rose between two women.

below: Another oldie – this purple guy has been blowing a gust of wind for many years.

below: Vintage Spud bombs, some cheerful and some menacing.

below: A funny looking green creature with big white eyes and lots of skinny legs.

below: A couple, together in the stream, in a mural by Elicser Elliott with the title “Swim”

below: Geometric shapes with a touch of rainbow colour, by Peru

below: Large pink and white swirls and curls cover a wall. Any time that you see swirls like these, think Flips because that’s sure to be the artist that painted them.

below: Only a small portion of this moose painting by Aaron Li-Hill remains. I don’t usually show the original works but I am going to make an exception here. See next image.