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.

below: Pull up a mattress and make yourself comfortable.

below: A mural or an ad?

more Dublin street art

Posted on October 11, 2016 by Mary C

Street art seen September 2016 in various parts of the city.

below: A place for Jenny to sit on a rainy day, by Albenty.

mural on a wll painted white, by Albenty and for Jenny, a red straight back wood chair with a red umbrella hovering above it

below: Wanted Kats, the Superhero Lady, by Amanda Deer, on a metal box beside the street.

on a metal box beside the road, a blue kat superhero woman with an rocket tank on her back, brih=ght pink background, by Amanda Deer

below: “Trust me, you’re lovely.”

a young man on his phone is standing in front of a street art painting, lavender colour background with a boy and girl withtheir back to the viewer. THe boy has his arm around the shoulder of the girl. There is a heart in the upper right corner, outlined in red and containing the words Trust me you're lovely.

below: “Once we were heroes”, by canvaz

stencil of a man sitting on a stool, wearing a suit and hat, and holding a sign with red letters on white that say Once we were heroes.

below: “I feel free when I’m riding a horse in the wild… Also when I take Ecstasy”

wall painted red, stencil of a horse's head plus some blobs in green, yellow and blue. Words written on it that say I feel free when I ride a horse in the wild and when I take ecstasy

below: Making his escape on Earl Street.

altered red and white circular no entry street sign, a black figure is trying to climb out of the white horizontal bar

below: U Are Alive

mural, diagonal rainbow stripes for the background, large white letters for the words U are alive

below: Better together crayons. Red + Blue = Purple. By peachydublin

a poster of three crayons standing together and holding hands. The one in the middle is purple and it's shorter, On either side is red and blue. At least that's what the words say, only the blue has been coloured in, signed #peachydublin

below: Making music, musical shamrocks

black stencil on a wall, a girl is playing a trumpet and out of the trumpet come shamrocks, three leaf clovers

below: Believe. A portrait of Kate Taylor, an Irish boxer and winner of a gold medal in the 2012 Olympics in the lightweight division.

poster on a grubby dirty white wall of a woman in profile, black with white top and red boxing gloves held in front of her chest. The word believe is written in capital letters under her

below: Pink vines growing towards the door by the bridge.

man walking away from the camera, walking past a mural on the side of a shop, pink vine growing upwards, a small round balcony with a window.

below: On the wolf’s back. Available

black drawing on white of a woman sitting the shoulders of a person with a wolf head, hands on her knees, signed Available

below: A yellow horned animal on the street

mural of a yellow horned animal on the side of a store, beside the sidewalk

below: Vote yes for marriage equality.

two adjoining window shapes with brown frames and rounded tops. On the left a picture of a man voting yes with the words marriage equality. On the right the word yes in yellow with a yellow heart.

below: Two pieces. Trees, mountains and sun that has been tagged over and second, a long blue haired person by Evolve Urban Art.

two street art paintings on a yellowish stucco wall, side of a building. One is a stylized landscape with trees, mountains and sun that has a large tag on top of it. The other is a person with long blue hair, hand by chin, head and shoulders only, by Evolve Urban Art

below: Another piece by Evolve Urban Arts, this time on Thomas Street.

a street corner in Dublin, two men are walking on the sidewalk past a shop, Welsh's confectioner that is closed. A street art painting is on the metal screen or awning that covers the window of the shop.

below: What caught my eye here was the word “Don’t” on the door. Perhaps Simone and Caitlin were here too.

exterior of the The Tenters Bar in red with black trim, closed and boarded up. The door is brown. Stencilled on the door is the word Don't. Simone and Caitlin are also written in white on the red wall.

below: Space invaders, cute little creatures, come in peace.

a line of 5 space invader creatures from the video game, with the words we come in peace under them.

below: I saw this face a number of times in various sizes…

large paste up a man's face, white with black line drawn features, on grey wood hoardings in front of a construction site.

below: … including this one, diceman by canvaz

large paste up of a man's head on a door of a grubby dirty white wall.

below: A cute little white cat and white dog surrounded by flower petals.

flowers in different colours, black and white pattern on petals, plus red petals, yellows and pinks too. In the background a pink blob with words written on it, street art,

a metal street box is covered with a colourful painting of a shite skull decorated like Mexican day of the dead on a many patterened background.

abstract painting street art on the side of a building and over the door, many colours and shapes

little street art painting of a yellow and black little guy with face towards the wall (or is faceless)

below: A younger Seamus Heaney, Irish poet. 1939-2013. Winner of the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature.

poster of a portrait of a man with ripped corners

Legacy mosaics

Posted on January 29, 2016 by Mary C

ANZAC Centenary, Legacy Street Art Project

Legacy is a charity that supports widows, children, and disable dependents of Australia’s injured or deceased military veterans. Drewery Lane in downtown Melbourne runs behind Legacy House. Over the four year Centenary of ANZAC period (2014 – 2018), Legacy plans to hold workshops that will allow the local community to interact and engage with the personal and shared histories of the Legacy Family. Workshop participants will create clay tiles and plaques with some connection to WW1. The plan is to attach 1000 of these mosaic pieces to the back of Legacy House. In November 2015, the first tiles were installed.

white square tile with the word legacy and a picture of three people, attached to an exterior wall with numerous small clay pieces around it.