older mural wall, Lecce

below: Mary and Jesus on the corner, with murals to the right and murals to the left.

mural with biblical scene, mary holding baby jesus in the center, man carrying a cross in bottom left

below: Along Via Ragusa there is a wall covered by a series of murals. On the other side of the wall are football fields. You can see the nets above the wall to prevent balls from flying onto the street.

older mural on a concrete fence in Lecce

below: Three dimensional cubes stacked on top of each other.

abstract painting on a mural on a fence, including a stack of three dimensional cubes

below: Flying cubes

mural in Lecce
calligraphy based design in mural

below: A Checkos, tribute to Juan Alberto Barbas, an Argentinian football player, b. 1959, who played for a number of clubs in Argentina, Spain, Italy, and Switzerland before retiring in 2009.

mural on a Lecce wall, portrait of football player Juan Alberto Barbas, face repeated numerous times,  artist named checkos

below: Linked fingers

long horizontal mural on a fence, to arms and hands coming together in the center to link fingers
part of a mural, blue circle, abstract, shape like a propellor
part of a mural, bird with long beak
part of a mural, two blue circles, also a partially drawn circle, in orange

I “found” these murals in a northeast section of Lecce when I went looking for the 167/B Street Murals. They are in the same neighbourhood.

Photos taken February 2024

trust, live, love, all on a little Paris wall

a wall in Paris with many little paper paste ups on it, a seahorse, a girl sitting on the sidewalk looking at a small tree, a heart, two people kissing, two lucky cats by missmam, and a fallen dancer

below: The first of two cats by Missmam (aka Marie-Anne Montfort) whose Instagram page says: “Street Chats pour le plaisir et autres curiosités pour la beauté”. On the right, a girl with long blond braids by Nevoul Art (the Little Street Art Fairy).

two paper pasteups, lucky cat by Missmam (aka Marie-Anne Montfort) and girl with long blond braids in traditional costume by nevoul art.

below: Keeping it simple, a kiss, by Artiste Plume.

two people kissing, all painted in red, white, and blue

below: Missmam,  another “La chat fortune” but this time, the lucky cat is getting a bouquet of tulips and balloons from an amorous seahorse by Industrie Tarte.   This lippocampe comes ready to divide into sections – filet, plat de cotes, bavette, flanchet – which are all cuts of meat. 

lucky cat by Missmam (aka Marie-Anne Montfort)

small graffiti, fallen dancer

below: “Trust, live, love” on a little heart

graffiti, small brown heart with stick figure made with hearts, text that says trust, live, love

below: She’s slightly fuzzy in this photo I’m afraid, she also appears on a number of European walls.  Street art by seiLeise (aka Tom Ossege)

graffiti painting, girl sitting on sidewalk looking at a small tree

Photos taken March 2023

another Stornara selection

With over 130 murals in Stornara, it would be a bit daunting to show them all in one blog post so I have been spreading them out a bit. My previous post showed some murals on Via Don Enrico Tazzoli, ‘A Stornara wall’. The first few pieces in this post is just around the corner from those.

below: Five faces looking at you, by Chekos

mural in black and white, with pattern covering, five female faces, painted by chekos

below: A closer look at the pattern of lines that the artist uses.

close up of part of checkos mural, black and white with line texture, woman's face

below: A skull with geometric shapes, by Manomatic

manomatic painted mural of a skull with geometric shapes and patterns of different colours on the forehead

below: Beside the skull, a child looks out the window.

image of child looking out a window, painted on a wall, beside mural by manomatic of a skull

below: Giovanni Castro’s artwork of seedlings and new plant life.

mural, slightly abstract, of new seedlings growing, showing roots and new leaves, a red line runs randomly across part of it
closer look at the seedlings in Giovanni Castro's mural

below: “Never invisible again”

two children walking together, back to viewer, image in a mural, along with text that says never invisible again

below: “Lupin e Jigen” by The Gaetan, a tribute to gay love. Both are characters from a manga series, Lupin III, first written by Monkey Punch (aka Kazuhiko Katō) in the 1960s. Lupin is a thief and Jigen is one of several of his gang members. Throughout the series, Jigen remains Lupin’s loyal and reliable partner to the end.

mural in pinks and blues of two men, one in a yellow hat who is saying i love you

below: Are those words written across his face in place of his eyes?

closer view of faces in The Gaeten's mural of two men

below: There are a number of pop culture references in Toni Espinar’s ‘Mondo Patetico’ that was panted during el Festival COMIXSTREET de Stornara in 2022

large mural with many figures and elements by Toni Espinar, title is Mondo Patetico which translates to pathetic world
part of mondo patetico mural, clown similar to the one on The Simpsons TV program, also a child with the words Stop War on a bandage across its forehead, and a label on the hair saying victim.  Krusty the Clown is saying tutto e controllato which means everything is checked

part of mondo patetico mural, blond superwoman action hero holding a child, text bubble with a poop emoji in it

below: Nearby, there are a few more walls that were (or could have been) painted during Comixstreet such as this image – she wears Wonder Woman’s clothes but carried Captain America’s shield. It was also painted by The Gaetan.

comic book like character, female captain america, carrying captain america round shield

two buildings across the street from each other in Stornara Italy, both with murals painted on them

below: A couple of “comic book” type illustrations by Devil Art Design

mural by Devil Art Design, painted for comix street festival, comic book characters, man holding woman who has fainted

below: by Kris Rizek “Donatrix (The great red riding hood)” – she carries a basket of spray paint cans to grandma’s house and no wolf is going to stop her!

large mural by Rizek of a woman in dark read hooded cloak, carrying a wicker basket full of spray paint cans

a Stornara wall, one of many

below: “Young Starling” by MATE Artist

mural in Stornara, young girls face, flowers in hair, yellow and blue stripes through face, one eye covered,

below: “Eternal Love” by Artiste Rast, for Stramurales 2023 festival

two murals in stornara, wall - older couple smiling at each other with lots of roses in the picture, called eternal love.  other mural is young child with yellow, red, and blue stripes,

below: The wall along Via Don Enrico Tazzoli.

wall with murals on it

below: “Rose” by Spanish artist Buble Gum (aka Tirso Paz Sans)

mural of a rose in reds and oranges

below: Swans and swallows in a mural by Fio Silva also for Stramurales 2023. Most of her work features birds.

mural with two white swans with orange beaks and two swallows in flight, by Fio Silva, blue background

below: “Colors of Puglia” by Reka One (aka James Reka)

mural of shapes and colours, abstract, in shades of green and pink with some white and orange, blue background, more curves than lines.  Colors of Puglia by James Reka

Photos taken February 2024

For more murals from Stramurales 2023

Tanini’s colours and shapes

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.

a our storey building with stores at ground level, covered with mural of shapes and colours, lower floors have grey background, upper level has yellow background, painted by Eljan Tanini close up of some of the windows of a building with the mural that is painted around them

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. street view, pedestrians on sidewalk, umbrellas over fruit stand, shops, bottom part of mural by Eljan Tanini

tall mural by Eljan Tanini

below: Four panels in a concrete wall have abstract paintings by Tanini (one on the left, with a blue background, is not shown). yellow building in the background, concrete fence with recessed panels that have been painted with bright coloured abstract paintings a panel from exterior wall painted byEljan Tanini, abstract shapes and colors on orange background

Keeping Mary Company

Like many corners in Rome, this one in Trastevere has a religious picture on the wall.   Here you can see  Mary, Jesus, and a couple of angels as well as ‘Ave Maria’ above the picture in what looks to be neon lights.  This Mary is accompanied by the words  Ricordo Delle Missioni Imperali Borromeo, Marzo MCMXLIX (i.e. 1949).  Ricordo delle meaning “I remember”, or more loosely, In memory of”

Mary now has a lot of company.

wall in trastevere rome with graffiti on it as well as a picture of the virgin mary .

below: Crying but still punk Eiknarf sticker as well as a “Volti Spenti” soulless man on his phone, or no face no ego, by Luther Posca

two slaps on a wall, one is a frog standing upright with a bottle in one hand and the words crying punk, by artist eiknarf. the other is a black stencil of a man with blank face taking a selfie on his phone. Instead of facial features he has the words volti spenti which are Italian

below: A black stencil of a woman with long hair and a red Thauma at the tip of what looks like a long green tail with little suction cups on the bottom.

a long green lizard tail graffiti with a picture of a woman thauma beside

below: A Jesus face, tifa toro on his cheek, and a cat by Guaro

black and white cat poster paste up by guaro and a jesus head with the words tifa toro

below: Paste-ups and wheatpastes don’t last forever.  1. In the top right corner are two drawings by LUS57 of women doing things.  One of them is vacuuming the universe – Saturn and the stars should be quite clean.  2.  Little Qwerty pieces fun to find – this one with the yellow hoodie doesn’t seem like much but I think the bottom half is missing.  3. Last, the little red balloon is the top of a tiny Exitenter painting.

some old faded and partially torn wheatpaste paste ups on a grey wall

below: These are in better shape.  1. A papaya by Per Dispetto whose art centers around that fruit.  2. A large red and white cat mouth open wide and eating an origami cat whole by Krems.  3. The tree with its light green flowers was created by stelleconfuse.  4. Zeta’s little man in gold and black has a post-it note on this torso.. it’s bent so it’s not easy to read by the words ‘sempre’ and ‘indefinable’ are there and it was signed by someone called Jenny (I think!).  Zeta’s instagram shows many variations on this man theme. 5. The little cat is “signed” but I can’t read the writing very well; it looks like BZQueen? and Confused Cat.  6. The two animals in the top right corner are a mystery.

many slaps on a grey wall

below: 1. Mr. Minimal, superhero in his blue underpants and flowing cape.  2.  A character out of science fiction or just outer space…?, by Winston Smith. 3. And last, Lovers by K2M.

a black and white picture of a spaceman as well as a lovers paste up by K 2 M.

below: Two more ladies hard at work by LUS57.  Above them, God wants to undo his creation work in a play on Michelangelo’s famous painting on the the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

graffiti on a wall. one is a poster of Michelangelo's sistine chapel creation where god points finger at man, but this time, ctrl + z is written on top, the computer shortcut for undo. There are also two little drawings by L J S 57, women working, women in old fashioned clothing, one is sorting straw and the other is sweeping

old fashioned like poster of a woman in an orange top with words zoom and vroom

The next few are small pieces that I saw nearby but not on the corner with the above.

black and white stencil on a wall looks sort of like a face made of rounded shapes, with word namea or nanea

a red stencil on a concrete wall of a man with goatee

below: A dog stamp.  A play on the Romulus and Remus symbol/statue that you see around Rome.  Is there significance to the XXX?  This is the work of Gu Tang Clan

motorcycles parked in front of 2 poster street art pieces. one is a play on Romulus and Remus wolf statue and it is by Gu Tang clan. it is made to look like a postage stamp

looking across traffic to a curved wall on a corner with graffiti on it

The previous blog post was also about graffiti in Trastevere.  You should be able to find it by scrolling down.   If not, this is the link: Trastevere slaps

Trastevere slaps

On Christmas morning, while walking around Rome, we discovered a wall in the Trastevere neighbourhood that was covered with paste-ups, stickers, and other small graffiti.  Some of it was made by well known street artists, others by those who remain anonymous.  If you know the name of the artist who created any of these, I’d love to hear from you.  This is what we saw:

many slaps, stickers, etc, on a wall

below: Red nose boxer with black eyes by MIMI the clowN as well as hands vainly reaching for green dollars by levodopa_046_.  A very small pair of very high heeled shoes sneak into the left side.

red nose graffiti by Mimi the clown

below: Fishes Invasion stickers and paste ups can be seen in many places around Rome. They all feature Invader Fish, a two legged walking fish with big lips. The fish actually started in New York City in 2015 and has spread around the world since then.

fishes invasion graffiti

a wall covered with stickers and pasteups

slaps on a wall including a red and white poster of two people kissing

below: ‘Volti spenti’ translates to ‘dull faces’ which is a comment on the poor guy taking a selfie with his phone. The cat is probably the work of Guaro and there is a yellow chick that wants you to know that it’s not a nugget.

volti spenti graffiti as well as a babushka doll and a dinosaur

black and white slaps and stencils

below: The woman on top is by C-ska

slaps on a wall, poster

many slaps

below: To Live and Let Live – Street art against hate.

black and white paste ups

below: Bottom right is an elaborate black and white drawing by Lus57 of a woman who  appears to be wearing a long dress but on closer look it’s actually a man’s torso and a tiger skin.   She is holding a rifle in her hand.  In contrast, there is a woman with bright copper hair and wild sunglasses – the work of stickermaidberlin.

posters and stencils on a wall

below: The bottom half of a Smilin’ Croc above a black and white portrait of a woman by Y-Tong and a big-nosed K2M man with an orange heart.

smilin croc graffiti as well as a big nose by K 2 M, also a black and white pasteup of a woman

 

below: Even Santa Claus helps spread the word about the Fishes Invasion although the pink and blue tiger seems to have an opinion about that.

fishes invasion graffiti with Santa Claus

below: The Fonz says plant a tree because it’s cool.

thauma red stencil graffiti

below: A purplish blue snake-like fish bites itself.  There is also a small C-ska sticker of a woman with a heart in the place of one eye.

long purple fish biting itself

below: My Dog Sighs, a crying eye on page 120 of an old book – with the photographer (selfie?) reflected in the eye.  Also, another C-ska piece – a woman with a bird cage for a head… meaning?

eye and red streak painted on a page of a book, now is graffiti, beside a pasteup of a woman with a birdcage for a head

Revolution Wall 2

The other day I posted some pictures of the art on the boards around the United Nations ESCWA building in Beirut (Feb 20, Let Lebanon Live).  The pictures in this blog post are from another Revolution Wall, by Art of Change, in the same neighbourhood.

on a grey wall in red letters, Revolution Wall Art of Change, peace written as a tag,

below: A rotten orange by dew (Ali Kadado) & renoz (renozoner).

On blue background, a young man holding up a large rotten orange, holding by the stem, street art by Dew and renoz

graffiti and street art on a Beirut wall

below: Wings of Freedom

wings of freedom graffiti

below: Close to a real heart

graffiti on a wall including a large heart that is anatomically close to real

metal and concrete barricades beside a wall covered with tags and graffiti

on a city street, low rise goldish brown stone buildings with graffiti and street art around the bottom layer

below: The count down is upside down

street art and protest graffiti on a wall, exterior

below: An archer fires red hearts in a painting by Lea Bou Habib

graffiti, an archer in blue top and shorts shoots a red heart from a bow

below: Stencil by markghsoub aka Markus

blue circle, red vertical stripe, black stencil of doves and other things in black

blue circle, red vertical stripe, black stencil of doves and other things in black along with a woman with a teal coloured bandana over the lower part of her face, a woman with long hair trying to hold onto a dove, all stencils

below: Throwing dice in a painting by Zein. street art of a hand throwing a pair of dice

grey wall in front of office building, with street art on the wall, Beirut

a woman's face with hair half blue and half pink, a large blue mouse that is screaming

below: Two pink mice

two pink mice painted on a wall in Beirut

below: Protesters throwing red hearts, not just any hearts, but hearts with the Lebanese cedar tree.

graffiti of a yellow circle with black silhouette of a person with a gas mask on, throwing a red heart
metal and concrete barricades, three white metal panels with graffit on them, a D, R and S on the panels

below: A Lebanese flag with the red stripe made of hearts, Our love for this country will overcome your greed for the green. street art of a Lebanese flag with the red stripes made of hearts, also the words Our Love for the country will overcome your green for the green

below: Three panels of bulls, cows, and words by Selim Mawad

three panels of drawings of cartoon bulls and cows by Selim Mawad

below: Close up of the middle panel

close up of a middle panel, work by Selim Mawad, black and white cows and bulls with Arabic writing

Scroll down to the previous blog post for more of Selim Mawad’s work.

Black & White Power

In Rome there is a long line of murals by Italian artists Sten and Lex that line both sides of the same street, Via dei Magazzini Generali. On one side, on an orange wall, are portraits of famous people.

long orange wall with large portraits by sten and lex, Italian street arts, in a mural on two sides of the street, of famous people and common people,

On the opposite side of the street is a shorter blue wall with pictures of common people.

large portraits by sten and lex, Italian street arts, in a mural on two sides of the street, of famous people and common people,

below: A Pope

pope and others, large portraits by sten and lex, Italian street arts, in a mural on two sides of the street, of famous people and common people,

The portraits were made with a combination of stencils and painting.

girl, middle aged man, woman, large portraits by sten and lex, Italian street arts, in a mural on two sides of the street, of famous people and common people,

three people, large portraits by sten and lex, Italian street arts, in a mural on two sides of the street, of famous people and common people,

woman in hard hat giving peace symbol with hand, large portraits by sten and lex, Italian street arts, in a mural on two sides of the street, of famous people and common people,

below: Barak Obama

Barak Obama, large portraits by sten and lex, Italian street arts, in a mural on two sides of the street, of famous people and common people,

elderly woman with glasses and yellow sweater, large portraits by sten and lex, Italian street arts, in a mural on two sides of the street, of famous people and common people,

below: Elvis & others

Elvis Presley and a rapper, large portraits by sten and lex, Italian street arts, in a mural on two sides of the street, of famous people and common people,

The one different picture is the panther, a symbol of power, with a woman’s face superimposed on it.

a large panther head in profile, with mouth wide open and teeth showing, a woman superimposed onto the side of the face of the panther, mural by sten and lex called black and white power