below: Wall of street art on a building in the Kaka’ako district.
below: This portrait of a man is by Portuguese artist Vhils (aka Alexandre Farto). Vhils is known for his unique “scratching the surface” technique, which involves carving, drilling, and chipping away at layers of plaster, posters, and dirt on walls to create images. The mural was created as part of the annual POW! WOW! street art festival in 2014.
below: Paradise and Beyond is written on the large mural in the middle but I think that the title is actually “A Big Wave”. Also written is Melón which refers to the artist MelonJames & Co. (with a shout out to alohabohs – aka Mike). This was painted in 2020, also as a POW!WOW! piece.
below: A tall tree on yellow.
below: In the shadows to the left of the tree, is a door that has been boarded up and covered with Mickey Mouse-ish images. The headline on the poster in the window reads Congrats Hawai’i, Give Yourself a Hi-5. There is then a lot of text that I can’t read.
One of the joys of exploring cities that have organizations and programs that promote good street art, is finding walls that have been a canvas for artists with global reach. In this case, the city of Chicopee (that I suspect many people outside of Massachusetts have never heard of) has a mural by Vhils, aka Alexandre Farto, a Portuguese artist whose work is now found in over 30 countries.
below: A better look at the Vhils work – He hasn’t painted this mural. Instead it has been created using a bas-relief carving technique. The colours in the mural are the colors of the different layers on the wall.
below: A garden of color. Bright red poppies with white and yellow daisies…. Blue hollyhocks and yellow delphinium (I think!) too.
On Viale Tor Marancia in Rome there is another residential area that has had murals painted on the four storey apartment buildings. There are 21 or 22 of them in total. Many of the murals are now at least ten years old so some of the colours have faded. Like most projects involving residential areas and mural, there is an organization behind them. In this case it is ‘Big City Life’ which is turn is a product of 999Contemporary. There was also collaboration with ATER – Azienda Territoriale per l’Edilizia Residenziale and Comune di Roma
below: An eye along with a partial face was carved into the wall on this building back in 2015. This is a method that Portuguese artist Vhils (aka Alexandre Farto) has used to create images.
below: This is “Bambino Redentore” (which translates to “Redeemer Child”). painted by French street artist Seth in 2015.
below: A look at part of the public housing development on Tor Marancia. The buildings date from the 1960s. They replaced earlier housing that was provided for the people who had been displaced from areas near the Vatican decades earlier.
below: Clemens Behr’s abstract figure.
below: A collection of many squares of different colours, by Italian street artist Alberonero (aka Luca Boffi). In fact, it’s title, “A Carlo Alberto 93 Colori” (“To Carlo Alberto 93 Colours”) suggests that there are 93 squares.
below: “Alme Sol Invictus” by Domenico Romeo; the title references the ancient Roman god of the sun, Sol Invictus.
below: Natura Morta by Reka (aka James Reka) – people, curly hair, fruit, flowers, a wine glass.
below: Just peeking out is one of the faces in “Nostra Signora di Shanghai” by Mr Klevra. The whole mural shows a mother holding a child, a religious image that is seen over and over again in Rome (and in all of Italy). One could also say that it is Rome (the mother) holding Tor Marancia (the child). The title translates to “Our Lady of Shanghai” as once upon a time this neighbourhood had the nickname of Shanghai.
below: Argentinian artist Jaz’s (aka Franco Fasoli) work, “Il Peso della Storia” (The Weight of History) depicts two wrestlers in the middle of a fight. One wrestler is carrying another on his back, representing the weight of Tor Marancia’s history. It was the first Big City Life mural (2014).
below: Another mural from 2015, is “Hic Sunt Adamantes”, by local street artist Diamond. Ancient Romans used to write on maps “Hic Sunt Leones” (“Here Be Dragons”) to describe the areas that had not yet been explored. Diamond turned the popular sentence into Here Be Diamonds to highlight the great potential of the area. In this mural, Diamond painted in his iconic, Art Nouveau style a representation of Rome: a sleeping beauty unable to wake up from her numbness. And there is also a Shanghai reference: a Chinese dragon inside a golden garland that sparkles in the sunshine.
below: Lek (aks Frédéric Malek) and Sowat ( Mathieu Kendrick) working together since 2010. painted “Veni, Vidi, Vinci.” This is not a typo, but an intended twist of Giulio Cesare’s famous sentence to tribute another notable Italian: Leonardo da Vinci.
below: An orange, part of a building, and a head? Does that head have a body? This is “Spettacolo, Rinnovamento, Maturità” (translation: “Performance, Renewal, Maturity,” 2015) by Gaia (aka Andrew Pisacane). Perhaps the orange makes more sense in Italian where it becomes ‘anancia’ and here we are in Tor M’arancia’. (more of Gaia’s work can be seen in a blog post from Heerlen Netherlands, Four for Community)
below: She may be involved in an intimate encounter but she seems more interested in what’s happening elsewhere. This is “the Pyramid”, a hug, by English twosome Best Ever (aka Neil Edward and Hadley Newman)
below: The now familiar face of Greta Thunberg.
below: “The Hand of God” by Jerico (aka Jerico Cabrera Carandang) obviously inspired by Michelangelo’s “The Creation of Adam” in the Sistine Chapel. ceiling frescoes) except here the fingers are surrounded by cherry blossoms
below: Bluish grey snake-like fish (whales?) school together, in “Il Ponentino” by Pantonio
below: And lastly, not a mural but a delight to find – a small collection of colourful flowers and a little white hummingbird was stenciled onto one of the walls, by STEW.
Eyes on the Streets 