January 23rd is Lunar New Year as we enter the Year of the Rabbit (except in Vietnam where apparently it’s the Year of the Cat).
below: Although this mural has nothing to do with rabbits (or cats), it is found in Toronto’s Chinatown. Three dragons cavorting on the wall on Oxford Street, painted by sightone in 2016.
below: Blue dragon guarding the door at number 5.
Nearby there is an alley where the Chinatown BIA has sponsored some murals with Asian themes.
below: A large koi, or carp, swimming towards a pink lotus flower.
below:“Flowers of the four seasons – Autumn Chrysanthemum” by rowdyradrat.
below: Another rowdyradrat painting – this one is “Flowers of the Four Seasons – Winter, Plum Blossoms” and it features Chinese plum blossoms.
below: A young girl surrounded by tulips and feathers painted at Rutland Road by Danielle Mastrion to honor the annual West Indian Day parade.
below: Community mural of palm trees and flowers by the lake. Brooklyn Peace Constellation was the work of a long list of artists and contributors.
A group of Fumero portraits beside Errol’s Caribbean Bakery on Hawthorne.
At Flatbush and Fenimore is this white on black mural by Katie Merz. In it you can find hundreds of little shapes, symbols, words and images such as a guitar, cats, dogs, and even a loaf of bread,
A few years ago, one of the themes running through the work of Otto Schade, aka Osch, was a sunset circle in a black background. The figures within the circle were silhouettes.
Greetings from Coney Island! A postcard type mural by Megan Watters.
Here street art has been incorporated into the amusement park. Each year since 2015 , Coney Art Walls has added to their collection of murals and now has more than 60. Go when the park is open!
below: More of the Art Walls. The largest one in the photo is by Nina Chanel Abney. The one closest to the camera is ‘Handsome Brother and the Mermaid’ by Aiko which is based on an old Japanese tale called “Taro Urashima and Dragon Palace”.
below: Behind a chainlink fence, another Coney Island mural.
below: And yet another Coney Island mural, this one with old black and white photographs of New York City views inside the letters. The Statue of Liberty makes a great exclamation mark.
below: Although it is disappearing behind the ivy, this is yet another Coney Island mural.
below: Clown face and more faces. Live and let live – street artists against hate in the bottom right. And that blue guy? Have you seen how many teeth he has?!
below: Smell the flowers before they die and by the looks of it you don’t have long….
below: A jumble of strings and wires and a few found objects all wound up and made into a slightly human-like shape. Man is a mess?
below: The 5th, and last one here, Coney Island mural is the newest and the biggest. This is “Coney Is For Everyone” on Stilwell Avenue, painted by Danielle Mastrion. It was an Alliance for Coney Island project.
below: A blue Subway Doodle monster sleeps in front of Nathans on the boardwalk.
below: Another result of the Alliance for Coney Island efforts is this multicolour mural on the shutters that was painted by Ledania.
below: Lock him up! Donald Trump behind bars. Doesn’t he look cute in black and white stripes?
There is a spot at 169 bd Vincent Auriol where you can see four large murals at once. Boulevard Vincent Auriol, presqu’au croisement avec la rue du Château-des-Rentiers.
On the far left is a mural by Wen2 and Pakone called “Les Perdrix ” . I’m not sure what “Partridges” have to do with it, but below is a clearer view.
Sitting on the dock. Watching the world? What thoughts could be going through her head? From this angle, the calligraphy on the black and grey mural is also in focus. It is a poem, ‘The Time of Your Life’ by William Saroyan, written in the artist’s own very stylized English script and it covers the entire side of the building. The artist is Cryptik, a Korean-American. I’m sorry that I don’t have a more complete picture of the mural.
The dominant mural in the top picture, the mural with the brightly colored sun is ‘Sun-Daze’ painted in painted April 2019 by Hownosm. How and Nosm (Raoul and Davide Perré) are identical twin brothers. The lower part of the mural is best seen from street level.
At the very top there is an image of man who has turned his head towards the setting sun.
And last, there is the pensive looking Asian woman (Japanese?) who was painted by British artist Hush (with some more of Cryptik’s calligraphy).
”In the time of your life, live – so that in that good time there shall be no ugliness or death for yourself or for any life your life touches. Seek goodness everywhere, and when it is found, bring it out of it’s hiding place and let it be free and unashamed” …. opening lines from “The Time of Your Life”, William Saroyan,
In a vacant lot on 14th Street in Manhattan are two large murals by the street art team, OSGEMEOS (or Os Gemeos), a Portuguese word meaning twins. An apt word in this case because the two Brazilian artists, Gustavo Pandolfo and Otavio Pandolfo, are twin brothers. The murals were painted in 2017 after a building was demolished – the lot is still vacant and the murals are still looking good (even if they are behind a fence).
They face each other across the wasteland. Music fans might be able to find the references to various musicians that have been included in the paintings.
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”)
“The Vision of St. Dominic”, 2017, by Paulina Nawrot and Ola Adamczuk, one of three murals sponsored by the Dominican order of Łódź in honor of its 800th birthday.
below: Part of one of the other St. Dominic murals. There are three birds in the mural.
below: ‘Ptak” by Axl Studio, aka Alexander Mehlhorn, 2016
below: Chasing the bluebird but not quite able to catch it.
In Toronto, subway tracks cross above the Humber River at Old Mill station. The concrete pillars that support the subway bridge have been covered with many watery blue First Nations themed murals.
below: The artist, Philip Cote, described the story behind this image on the ArtworxTO website (see link); like all cultures, the Anishinaabe have an origin story. In the beginning there was just Spirit. “And that spirit decided to send signals out into the universe and waited for a response. And when no response happened that spirit called the signals back and said, “As you come back to me, create light in the universe”. And at that moment they had light and dark in the universe. And that is the beginning of the Anishinaabe cosmology. Everything for Anishinaabe is made of light and dark. Everything we look at has a spirit, everything, the ground, the rocks, the sand, the trees, the birds, the plants, everything is… and even our sun and our Mother Earth and the moon, they all have a spirit.”
connecting with the thousands of galaxies of the universe
The blues of the water, the Humber River, were painted by Kwest. Water is the Underworld in Ahishinaabe cosmology and the Guardians of this Underworld are the fish. Another artist, Jarus aka (Emmanuel Jarus), painted the fish.
Most of the paintings have a well defined circle. This is the boundary between water and earth, between the spirit world and the physical world. But there are connections between the two worlds – all living things are connected and we are all connected to the Spirit World.