below: Dance the Dance My Girl,” is located in the Mount Pleasant neighborhood of Vancouver. It is a collaboration between Ari de la Mora and Irving Cano and it was painted as part of the 2017 Vancouver Mural Festival.
below: A woman in traditional clothing and jewelry, holding a very realistic looking heart and a pineapple. The latter symbolizes hospitality and abundance.
Photos taken April 2025
My previous post was also about a walk down a section of Toronto’s Graffiti Alley (Spadina to Portland). This post is from the same walk – because there were so many images that I wanted to share, I decided to divide the fun into two parts. This second part takes a closer look at some of the smaller pieces.
below: Peeling paper hands…. A 33wallflower33 group of three women in their dashing outfits … and a charming man with devil’s horns and red glasses.
below: Although it’s getting more difficult to see, there’s a Poser rabbit by the door. The door is disappearing behind a layer or two of paper and paint.
below: There is a little pink stikman on the light above the door.
below: Once upon a time this skinny little guy was pink but ooops, a layer of paint and now he’s prematurely grey.
below: In her face – another stikman
below: Last stikman for today… sometimes you find them tucked away in hard to see places.
below: Party line? Four hands phone.
below: A bleeding heart, a pansy flower, and a woman with a red hat and big ear rings.
below: Polly wants a cracker before she takes over the world, or at least that’s what she told me.
below: A young woman with blue lipstick and jagged pink make up on her cheeks. A spiked collar is around her neck. Make of it what you will.
below: Another young woman, this time she’s a little softer (at least in appearance) – drawn by Catchoo.
below: Multiple Sailor dudes (trp613) in two varieties hanging out with a happy little catchoo critter and its smiley daisy balloon.
below: “Save me”!
below: It looks like catchoo has been busy.
below: More of that wall.
below: Darth Vader makes an appearance too. Who’s that man peeking through the hole?
below: One flower sprouts a bald person while the other produces a sunny orb. That black octopus doesn’t look very happy – perhaps in this winter weather it needs more than just a woolly toque.
below: There are those women again!
below: Dogma slaps standing tall in his puffy jacket and bright red mitts.
below: Riding a D7606 crayon – T-bonez always finds new adventures.
below: A collaboration between Tamm Shinzo and April Showers Art produced this little round piece – sitting on top of the clouds with the moon shining over her shoulder.
below: Cryptid Supremacy – a rat with a very long tail
below: More rats, this time “the rat race is rigged”. Also another skull (skulls are very popular!), this time by Broke Canvas (aka Colin Green) on yellow. And third, is it a rainbow or a very sad face? – slap by Rider Waitress (aka Frances Sousa)
below: While we’re dealing with rats – Squee! They are all fleeing from an NYC trash can. Don’t litter!
below: Another small collection – Catchoo shows up on a soy sauce bottle while a Sentient Cookie (aka Cecil Tian) character gets taped to the wall… remember that banana?! And last, in the top left corner, a Cartoon Car Slaps.
below: Juice box time. By Clem Crevetz
Photos taken January 2026
Stramurales curated by the Stornara Life association. Since I visited the city in February 2024, many more murals have been painted on Stornara’s walls. Even though this is my eighth blog post showing Stornara murals, there are many that you will have to go to see for yourself! …. or of course you could check out the Stornara Life website.
below: Graffmatt painted this child with a leaf among the bags of trash, all in blues. It’s title in “Desperate World”
below: “No Looking Back” by Zabou. In case you can’t see it, the title of the book is, “Unione Europea, Repubblica Italiana”
below: Liberami da tutto il male (= Deliver me from all evil) by Brazilian artist Alex Senna; his murals are almost always in shades of gray.
below: “Love overcomes death”, by JDL (aka Judith de Leeuw). The same woman in three different, but similar, positions.
below: Only the flower has color.
below: Caratoes painted this portrait, titled “La Ragazza Meccanica”. This translates to The Mechanical Girl. A machine, or robot, with a mask to make her look human.
below: Both of these pieces are by No Chance (or No Chance Crew), Mona Lisa with her Anonymous mask, and the elderly couple in “Eternal Love”
below: Someone has left a drink for Ghost
below: Zip is the artist who created this little piece – a barefoot girl and a teddy bear.
below; A plain brick wall has been transformed – this mural by Vesod looks so real! The 3-D effect is so well done!
below: A field of red poppies and a blue head scarf in another Zabou mural, “Girl Lying Among the Poppies”
below: “Positive Light” by Alaniz – a mural with bats and a white dove that seems to glow.
below: Your dream, dreaming as you drive, by Antonio Giuliani – but the needed context is that this was painted in August 2020 so she is dreaming of freedom after the COVID lockdowns of 2020.
below: A bit creepy, this skeleton is trying to kiss the girl (or it could be the other way around?). It was a collaboration between Diamond and Solo (Flavio) and is titled “Sommernacht” which is German for Summer Night.
below: “It’s Too Late for Revolution” by Lucione Samoa
below: “One of my Friend” (with a pug looking on), by Artez
below: This mural is a collaboration between Zabou and Bifido.
below: Another piece by No Chance; this one is called “Giovanna Darkness”.
below: The first of at least two Dale Grimshaw paintings in Stornara is this one in blue.
below: The second Dale Grimshaw portrait is also a male, but this time it is a Papuasian holy man.
below: “Two Ancient Faces”, one male and one female combined, in a mural by Aero.
below: A little mouse with a magic wand stands beside a bright pink pair of running shoes, or sneakers, with matching pink laces. This was painted by Aurora Agrestini.
below: The monkey, or ape, is a mural by Smok with a great title, “OMG Humans”.
below: “The White Tiger” by Martina Pesce.
below: Pooh Bear but oh! This is not the Winnie the Pooh you thought you knew. This Winnie, painted by Kris Rizek, seems to be getting ready to be up to no good! A gas mask? cans of spray paint? and what’s in that green bottle?
below: Celebrating an event from 16 April 1519.
below: Stornara Life. As I walked around the town, a local woman who spoke no English (and I can’t speak much Italian) made sure that I understood that it was the people at Stornara Life who brought the artists and their work to Stornara.
below: The last mural for this post is “The Crowd of Fools” painted by Gods in Love. It covers two sides of a building. I don’t have a photo of the whole mural – instead I will leave you with a few bits and pieces.
Photos taken February 2024
…. more Kaka’ako murals
below: At the corner of Cooke and Pohukaina Streets where two sides of an older industrial building are covered with murals.
below: It looks a lot like the work of krack1 but I haven’t been able to find any proof online (and I forgot to look for a ‘signature’ for this piece when I was taking photos).
Along the Cooke Street side of the building, there is a row of murals. This is some of them:
below: A blue and white striped tiger by Kim Sielbeck stalks through tall plants.
below: Bright red and pink flowers by tattoo artists Cory Ferguson and Luckyolelo
below: Michelle Hoogveld‘s graphic heart
below: Lauren Hana Chai painted this woman sitting under a lotus flower and wrapped by a white and pale blue tiger.
below: In a mural by Drea, aka Andrea James, blowing air at butterflies – will this tiny change in the butterfliies’ behavior have a ripple effect on other events? – The Butterfly Effect
below: By Jana Lam, and Fam, more flowers – droopy pink ones and bright blue ones splashed across a textured sky.
below: The view back up the street from the south end of the block.
There is a building across the street with some silhouette type images of people.
Photos taken July 2025
Christina Angelina, painted this very large mural on the side of an Office Depot store in the Kaka’ako neighborhood in Honolulu.
It shows two women warriors (? or Roman goddesses?) each wearing helmets and holding a gray and pink bird. The long curved beaks of the birds almost touch and their bodies come close to forming a heart shape.
On Via Regina Margherit in Stornara there is a large mural by Toni Espinar. It’s title is: “La gran mentira” (Triptico de la Consciencia) which translates to “The Big Lie (Triptych of Consciousness). Triptych refers to the fact that the mural is in three sections/scenes, each under its own arch. The arches resemble stonework found in church architecture.
The first frame is dominated by large purple creatures with big white teeth and shiny red eyes. Green biohazard symbols are in their mouths. A gargoyle-like human head with eyes closed is at the top of the arch.
Under the word “Utopia” is a very pregnant man with a tattoo that says “Respect” on his tummy. On his shoulder is another tattoo that combines the symbols for male and female. He is looking skyward, or perhaps heavenward. Is there a comparison to Christ that can be made here? Is there a resemblance to how the face of Jesus is often portrayed?
Tiger mom seems to push little tiger son into the boxing ring. The white words above the gremlins say “La grande bugia” which can also translate to “the big lie”. Across the top of the arch it says “cambiare mondo, non follia ma giustizia”, or “change the world, not madness but justice”
The chest tattoo is a winged red heart with the equation e=mc2, Einstein’s theory of relativity. There is also a series of keyholes on his chest.
On the far right of the mural, a school of green fish swim together.
Photos taken February 2024
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: Keeping it simple, a kiss, by Artiste Plume.
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)
Photos taken March 2023
below: A street in the Trastevere neighbourhood in Rome.
below: A collection of paste-ups (or wheatpastes) from a number of artists.
below: The large simplified guy has Frafimi written on his tummy while the blue hand says “Smile please” as it seems to reach for a skunk. Draw is on the run, The Chosen Few Worldwide show a fist and Horus, at the far right, has weird eyes.
below: A pink thing by Tzing
below: T.A.C.I.M. Collective‘s black and white portrait of a woman with long hair beside a funny looking Jack’o’lantern (i.e. a pumpkin with a face carved into it).
below: Blackheart boy of The Chosen Few with another black and white woman’s portrait. She partially covers that strange image of the two men. ”Liebe” is on the screen at TV Clan. Liebe is love.
below: Urban ninja squadron from Toronto makes an appearance. There is also a circular drawing by Streetartee of a women’s leg emerging from a swirl of hair – being reborn. The I ‘heart’ mare is also one of hers. On the top left, with big lips and finny feet is Fishes Invasion (aka Merioone). This little fish gets around; I have seen his image in so many places!
below: A combination of streetartee (aka 11tee, or Tracey) and Alessandro Spun (aka spun29) and a large black and white Marilyn Monroe. This is one of those pieces that I struggle with but the fact that streetartee is female seems to make it easier for me to accept it. ”Vivi di gusto” is live with taste while “vivi disgusto” is experience disgust. An interesting play on words.
below: No Limits
below: Another wall, another collection.
below: Two faces with a heart in the middle. The face on the left is an example of pareidolia since the ripped paper forms two eyes, a forehead, and a mouth – our brains see those shapes and interprets it as a face. The other pieces are more paste-ups by streetartee.
below: It’s not a very good photo, but this little image of a woman lying on a cauliflower that has been cut in two is another Spun29 piece. The words, “pelle morta di ventisette anni” translate to “dead skin of twenty-seven years”. And I will leave you with that profound thought…..
Photos taken December 2019
If you are interested, there is a previous blog post from a couple of years ago with more Trastevere slaps
On all four corners of an intersection in a residential area of Heerlen (Netherlands) there is a mural on the side of one of the buildings. They were all painted by the same artist and they all feature some aspect of Dutch culture or history. A pink and purple theme also runs through them all.
below: On Oude Kerkstraat is “Operation Heartbeat” by American artist Gaia – A heart surrounded by different flowers from the Dutch “Empire”
below: Another Gaia mural across the street from his hearts and flowers is this bit of local history – Former Prime Minister of the Netherlands, Joop den Uyl, announces the end of the coal mining in Limburg, December 1, 1965.
below: ‘Tulipmania’. The face is that of Frederik Hendrik (1584-1647) who was a Statdtholder of the Dutch Republic, as well as a sovereign Prince of Orange during the Dutch Golden Age, i.e. in the time of Tulipmania. I doubt that he’s a recognizable face these days but it’s an interesting detail just the same.
below: ‘Resilience’ was influenced by the painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder (d. 1569) who painted scenes of everyday peasant life. Here is a contemporary scene of everyday urban life.
below: A red headed woman wrapped in a blue shawl and holding a white rose. White roses are symbols of purity and innocence as well as love and affection. Traditionally the Virgin Mary is depicted with a blue shawl or similar clothing. The mural is ‘Oblicze Piękna’, painted in 2018 by Paulina Nawrot. The title translates to Face of Beauty, or Vision of Beauty.
below: A faded woman sits by her telephone in a 2014 mural by Russian artist, Morik as part of Galeria Urbans Forms.
below: Another faded mural, this one shows an anatomically correct heart with half of a butterfly on each side. Above the heart grows a large tree. The mural was painted in 2015 by Puerto Rican artist Alexis Diaz and is titled “Czuć” (or in English, “Feel”)
Eyes on the Streets 