Stern in Plovdiv

Posted on August 12, 2019 by Mary C

There are numerous paintings by Bulgarian street artist Dimitar Mekhandziiski (aka Stern) in Plovdiv Bulgaria. Here are some of the ones that I saw in April 2017. a woman is taking a photo of a large mural by Dimitar Mehandjiiski a k a stern in Plovdiv, external wall, puppets people

below: A dragon hand puppet on the end of a blue arm and another man in a red hoodie, looking down on the stage as a man walks past.

a man with a blue face and blue arm holds a dragon hand puppet while another man in a red hoodie holds a fox puppet

below: The making of a wooden puppet?

an older man with reading glasses and balding hair holds a wood puppet with a round head and a stick-like neck

below: The crocodile (alligator?) has a blue glass heart between its jaws. Be careful! Is that a grenade inside the crystal?

looking at the corner of a building, with murals on two sides. One side is of a man riding a purple and pink alligator or crocdile. The other side is not seen as easily and are more creatures

below: Empty chairs and a table in front of a mural… a pink creature beside another ugly creature with green skin, beady eyes, and a very long tongue. Inside the window next door is the face of a strangely beautiful character with long hair, pink eyes, and blue skin. In its hand (with watch on its wrist) is a flaming torch.

murals by stern on the side of an old building in Plovdiv

below: Riding the dragon (crocodile?) and wearing a mask.

a person in a mask with an orange beak is sitting on what looks like an inflatable green dragon

below: In contrast to his other work, this frog and these mushrooms look much more realistic.

A light green frog sits on a dark green leaf, mushrooms on both sides of him, some of the mushrooms have beige and white striped caps and some have red tops with white dots

Quito Ecuador

Posted on February 20, 2018 by Mary C

There is a lot of street art in Quito. It covers a lot of concrete walls that are part of the city’s infrastructure (supports for elevated roads, walls around buildings, etc). Here is some that I saw in February 2018.

below: Two people, one inside sitting pretty in pink and one outside.

grey and white painted stencil of a man including head, upper body and one arm. on a yellow wall beside a window with a pink window frame. There is a sticker or pasteup of another face in the window looking out. Quito Ecuador

below: A bird in flight. One wing looks like flames while the other wing resembles water. Signed by yo-ho-ho.

street art in Quito Ecuador, a bird in flight, one wing looks like flames and the other wing looks like water, painted by yo_ho_ho. mural in Quito Ecuador

below: Many, many faces in pink.

on a wall with ivy growing over the top of it, many faces in shades of pink , overlapping each other. mural in Quito Ecuador

below: Part dragon and part fish?

on a yellow wall, behind a small tree, a colourful painting of a dragon

below: A painting by BEGO

on a house beyond a white fence, a painting on the upper storey of a woman with red hair and red flower

The next few paintings were on a wall surrounding an house that was falling down.

on an old stone wall, two animal heads, a dog and a cat maybe.

painted in blue, a pig with sunglasses and crossed arms, words say smoky pig

on a crumbling stone wall is a large green face with many pink eyes, and pink liquid spewing from his mouth

below: This is the last of the photos from the ruined building – note the broken bottles across the top of the wall. That’s very common in Quito… although electric fences seem to be replacing broken glass as a means of keeping trespassers out.

mural of a boy's head in profile, short hair, wearing goggles, all in blue shades

below: Crab (lobster?) hands

stylized painting of a man upper body with large crab hands, lack hair and blue writing (illegible) on both sides of his head. ‘

below: Laughing and pointing

large man's face with laughing open mouth, moustache and short hair, pink shirt collar, hand with index finger pointing , mural in Quito Ecuador , Hecho salsa

below: Someone stole an orange cone.

graffiti on a wall

below: Covering his mouth and I don’t think that it’s because he’s coughing.

mural in Quito Ecuador , large red face with a blue hand covering its mouth

below: Me

wall painted part red and part blue. on the blue part is a large ME in white with black border. Quito Ecuador graffiti

below: Pasteup over his face, a mouse and a mousetrap

part of a larger mural with soldier, wearing helmet with three gold stars on it, someone has put a red dot in the middle of his forehead, also a pasteup now covers his face, with a rat on it, mural in Quito Ecuador

below: Another gorgeous bird. Signed by Pagach? (Pagache?)

mural in Quito Ecuador , realistic painting of a bird with a black and yellow head.

below: Painted on a rusty metal gate. Reaching for the skull. I am not sure of the words but if it’s “ponte y las alas” that translates to ‘stand and the wings’ but there are more letters. Any ideas anyone? Painted by Aster in 2017.

on a rusted metal gate that is locked closed, graffiti of a person with outstretched arm, as well as a skull

below: Resiste

small paste up of a face and star with green and red parts

below: Graffiti behind the fence

graffiti on a wall beside an outdoor stairwell, behind a chainlink fence in Quito Ecuador

below: Supay Corpus in a residential area.

below: Someone likes to paint underwear, men’s brief to be more specific.

large black and white painting of a pair of men's briefs, underpants in Quito

below: A very realistic portrait of an old man with one green eye open.

realistic, and large, painting of a wrinkly man's face, one eye open and one closed. The open eye is green.

faded red concrete steps leading to a black door with a metal grille covering it,also some graffiti tags. Two bottle brush trees are in front with their red flowers

circular pattern painted in black and white with a cat's face ferocious in the center circle, painted mural

And last, there were some word stencils….

below: #2mayo and “ecuador ama la vida” which is ‘ecuador, love life’ is now someone’s love note to Mina.

two black stencils, the first is a raised fist with the words #2mayo and the other says ecuador

below: “Sigue to corazon & disfruta el viaje” which means “follow your heart and enjoy the trip”.

black stencil on grey concrete, sigue tu corazon a disfruta la viaje, written twice

below: Natura Insurrecta? and “Mineria responsable cuento miserable”. The direct translation for the latter is “mining responsible, tale miserable”.

green stencil on top and black on the bottom that says mineria responsable cuentu miserable

Belfast street art

Posted on October 13, 2016 by Mary C

Belfast is home to more than 250 murals. Most of them are political or historical in nature and concern the recent “Troubles” in Northern Ireland’s past. But there are other murals in this city, and other street art. This post features some of the apolitical murals that I saw late in September of 2016.

below: A large mural by Smug One on High Court Street (One of his murals previously seen in Melbourne – Smug on Wood Street)

below: Keep Her Lit, keep the furnace in your heart burning, keep the fire alive.

below: These fingers are pointing at you in a mural by EMIC. 3D glasses are available in Sunflower, which is a store across the street. It’s difficult to take a photo in 3D!

below: This blue woman looms over one of the smaller streets in downtown Belfast.

below: Fighting with swords while a dead (or injured) dog lies on the floor. Surreal?

below: The vertical painting in browns is done by KVLR

below: A mural by Kashink who is an artist from Paris. She has painted in many cities around the world and some of her work can be seen in Montreal.

below: A colourful dog by Verz, a local artist.

below: A mural showing streets at night, lights and reflections, by Dan Kitchener

below: One of the hazards of taking pictures of street art is the usual presence of parked cars. They get in the way. A lot. Sometimes you just have to make them part of the composition.

below: And then there are the times when the cars are just in the way and there’s no way around it. This black bird was painted by Spanish artist Sabek. It would be nice to think that the arrow is aimed right at the car roof and that it missed the bird.

below: Continuing the bird and arrow theme is this mural titled “The son of Protagoras” by MTO (French born, now Berlin based). The mural is located in the yard of Northern Ireland War Memorial. Note the markings on the arrows. Protagoras (about 490 – 420 BC) was a Greek philosopher; he was either an agnostic or an atheist.

below: This snake and arrow mural was painted in 2015 as part of the ‘Hit the North’ event when 30 murals were painted in Belfast. Some of the other murals in this blog post were painted then. If you watch this video on youtube you might recognize them!

below: A fantastical dragon creature in purple and orange walks along the pavement.

below: A cockatoo by Dan Leo sits high on a wall, brightening up the side of a building.

below: On the fence beneath the cockatoo is this mural. It seems to be a deer hunt? The woman and her dog are chasing the deer? Or running with the deer?

below: A Faigy mural, The owl doll Millies

below: A wonderful portrait of a man by DREPH. I saw a few slices of bread with feet… The signature on the side of the bread seems to say Artista. The himbad signature on the left goes with the cat in the picture below

below: Himbad cat, wide open mouth and many sharp teeth!

below: Now it’s Puinsai Hawaii at any time.

below: On the Restore Charity Shop, a woman by Emic.

below: ‘LOST’, a man with harp antlers and a pink nose, two lonely whiskers and a grille over his mouth. My apologies for the fact that the quality of the photo is such that the smaller words are illegible. I think that what is lost is dip-py but could be dup-py.

below: More pasteups. A Citizen Nobody poster is surrounded by other pasteups in various states. “The will to consume terrorises you.”

below: Ireland is not full of leprechauns. There is one on this wall but I didn’t see too many others, real or otherwise! There were no pots of gold either. I saw a few nuns though including this one by David Creative.