Tag Archives: indigenous

Nô portraits

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These six street art portraits by Nô were seen on or near Rue Dénoyez in Belleville, Paris…. an older aboriginal Australia with his decorated boomerang, two young girls looking out for each other, another child, a man in dreadlocks, a green eyed woman in a head scarf, and an indigenous American in a feather head dress.

street art portrait by No on rue Denoyer in Paris, of an indigenous Australian man with arm upraised and holding a boomerang covered with aboriginal symbols and art

street art painting of two young girls dressed in blue, older girl is protectively holding the younger one

street art painting in Paris of a black man in dreadlocks with two girls, one on his shoulders, the other in front of him

portrait of a young child by artist no, on pink background, blue t shirt, black hair,

Portrait by No, a middle aged woman with green eyes and wearing a blue head scarf with red circles on it

There are many more examples of his portrait painting on instagram, no street art

Photos were taken in June 2022

under the Hunter Street Bridge

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In Peterborough Ontario the Hunter Street bridge crosses the Otonabee River. The west end of the bridge is in downtown while the east ends at James Stevenson Park. It’s in the park that you’ll find the paintings.

Back in 2015 and 2016 two of the arches under the Hunter Street bridge were painted. Nogojiwanong is an Ojibwa word for “place at the end of the rapids” and it was their name for the area that is now Peterborough.

Hunter Street bridge fromJames Stevenson park, grass in front, picnic tables under the arches

Facing the Nogojiwanong mural, and not visible in the above photo, are three animals – deer, beaver, and lion. Now the town is referred to as Electric City. Why? Because on May 24, 1884 Peterborough was the first town in Canada to have electric street lighting on downtown streets. Power was provided by the London Street hydroelectric water plant, also built in 1884.

arch under a bridge, street art painting of jumping deer with magenta antlers, a beaver, a log, and some leaves,

The murals on this arch were painted by Kirsten McCrea, with the help of Vicky Jackson (at least that’s what it looks like in the bottom right of this photo).

a street art painting of a lion with a curly mane and long tail, painted by Kirsten McCrea in yellow and black
from a mural in Peterborough Ontario by Jill Stanton, a picture of bloodroot plant, leaves, flowers, and roots under the ground

Bloodroot is a plant native to the Peterborough area.  It gets its name from the fact that it bleeds red when the stems are cut.  According to the text in the mural (bottom right, below), bloodroot propagates through a process called myrmecochory which is seed dispersal by ants.  The seeds have external “appendages” that are  rich in food that ants like.  Once this food is consumed, the seed is discarded and can germinate. 

large mural under a bridge, bloodroot plant, roots and leaves and flowers, painted by Jill Stanton

This mural was painted in 2016 by Jill Stanton with the help of Andrew Ihamaki.

from a mural, bloodroot flowers

Photos taken September 2022