New Dawn is the name given to the latest laneway street art mural painting project. It is a celebration of the 10th anniversary of StreetARToronto.
The alley runs parallel to Queen Street West (just west of Ossington); it crosses Brookfield and Fennings streets.
The largest mural of the project is a collaboration between five artists: Meagan Kehoe, Kreecha, Bacon, Sight, and Nick Sweetman.
This post also appears on the As I Walk Toronto blog.
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.”
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.
O+ Festival is the name of an annual art, music, and wellness festival in Kingston New York that began in 2010. Most of the murals in this post were painted as part of that festival. But not all of the murals in Kingston are included – my apologies to those left out – but I will be back!
Bright and bold Kingston, but down an alley where it’s hard to see all at once.
below: This mural was painted by Jess Snow and Jia Sung and is titled “Oh Wind, Take Me to my Country”. It is a portrait of Sudanese poet Safia Elhillo and was inspired by one of her poems.
below: “Late Summer Kill Swim” by Samantha French and Aaron Hauck. Apparently the word ‘kill’ is a reference to the local Hudson Valley swimming holes.
below: “LIfted” by Lindsey Wolkowicz and Dillon Paul, 2018. Women and girls girls working together to lift each other up.
below: Thorneater Comics painted this sturgeon in 2015.
below: “Pretty Nose and Dakota Unity Riders” by LMNOPI (aka Lopi LaRoe). Pretty Nose was an Arapaho woman war chief who participated in the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876. It is said that she lived to be 101 years old.
below: “Native Americans Discover Columbus” by Lady Pink
below: “Shadow Guide/Shadow Self” by Dina Kravtsov and Matthew Schulze, 2018
below: On one of the exterior walls of Keegan Ales is a mural painted by John Breiner in 2016. “From the Ground Up” has faded a bit over the past few years but there is a photo of it in its former glory on the artist’s website.
below: Another mural on Keegan Ale buildings – this one was painted by Jack Dishel and Vor138 in 2014.
below: Letting the imagination run wild as boys and girls read books in “Fishbone” by Eugene Stetz Jr., 2016
below: “Sun/Moon” by Enz.
below: “Shadows of our Ancestors” by La Morena (aka Lucinda Yrene Hinojos) , with help from Cesar Castaneda, 2018. The mural depicts the artist’s grandmother, daughter, and niece participating in a healing ceremony while the hummingbirds represent her spirit animal.
below: “Flight Sequence”, an owl in flight, by Justin Suarez, 2017
below: A tribute mural by Jalani Lion and Donny Mapes; In memory of Adam (Jeff) McQueen, Kaireem Meeks Jr, Dante Crump, Jonte Clark, and Jeffrey D’Aguilar, painted in 2015.
More Kingston NY murals
Photos taken July 2022
These two murals are at Srodkowa 17 and Srodkowa 21 in the Praga neighbourhood of Warsaw. The one in the back is “Mechaniczny Wilk”, which translates to “Mechanical Wolf”.
The other is “Warsaw Fight Club” by Conor Harrington
These two murals are close to the train station in Lodz. In the foreground is a large portrait of pianist Artur Rubenstein. Just in the picture on the right hand side, is a wall with a faded butterfly mural.
The colourful portrait was painted in 2014 by Brazilian artist Kobra (aka Eduardo Kobra). Like many of the murals in the city, it was painted as part of an Urban Forms Foundation project/festival and now is part of the Urban Forms Gallery.
Rubenstein was born in Lodz in January 1887. He was a child prodigy – giving his first piano performance when he was 7 years old. At 13 he played with the Berlin Philharmonic and at 19 he played Carnegie Hall in New York City. He career spanned eight decades. He died in 1982 at age 95.
Lodz Poland is full of murals. It’s the kind of city where Tourist Information gives out maps showing the location of more than 130 murals, most of which are in walking distance (but there are trams too if you prefer). Three of those 130 are here in this blog post.
First, an upside down wiggly line couple by Klone Yourself (aka Igor Revelis) titled “Midnight Lovers”. Painted in 2017.
Another large mural in Lodz featuring abstracted human forms is this sort of art deco style painting.
The third is this mural called “Gentrification” by Tone aka Robert Proch (d. 2019). It was painted in 2013.
Photos taken May 2022
In a small area where Resit Efendi Sk. ends at Talimhane Sk. in the Kadikoy district of Istanbul, there are three large murals.
below: Two Polish artists, SEPE (aka Michal Wrega) and chazme (aka Daniel Chazme), painted. If you follow the links to their instagram pages, you will see that SEPE’s work is with faces and figures while chazme’s style is very geometric.
below: A stark mural in black and white showing vehicles falling through an opening in the sky is the work of M-City aka Mariusz Waras (painted in 2014).
below: The last of the three murals is this blue bird with orange feet. It was painted in 2018 by Ukranian artist Alex Maxsiov. It is titled, “Turkish Tea” – perhaps because this bird (like the seagulls seen around Istanbul) has landed on a table with a glass of tea and a plate with unfinished food on it.
Photos taken early June 2022
below: A collaboration between Dutch artist nilsRVA (aka Nils Westergard) and local Viennese artist emilone (aka emanuel jesse) produced this peaceful looking sleeper.
below: The woman on the right with the curly hair was painted by Paola Delfin.
below: Some more emilone pieces – unfortunately with some graffiti added.
below: Down beside the man in the baseball cap, there is text, p.phobia. Is this a “signature” of the person who painted that man? The righthand side of the artwork is more emilone.
The painting are from 2014 and 2015. The photos were taken June 2022.
As I walked around Tirana I saw several examples of murals by Albanian artist Eljan Tanini. This blog post features three – a whole building covered by his shapes and colours, a tall vertical mural, and last, a wall with four panels.
below: All sides of the building are covered with whimsical playful shapes in Blloku.
below: Street scene on Rruga Myslym Shyri with the bottom part of Tanini mural showing. This mural was painted as part of MurAL Fest 2018.
below: Four panels in a concrete wall have abstract paintings by Tanini (one on the left, with a blue background, is not shown).
Eyes on the Streets 