image captionOn Thursday in Abidjan, the main city of Ivory Coast, a woman walks past a mural reminding residents to wear masks and stay safe.
image captionOn Thursday in Abidjan, the main city of Ivory Coast, a woman walks past a mural reminding residents to wear masks and stay safe.
As seen on the streets of Manchester: a street art guide
Or, better, I should say as seen on the streets of the Northern Quarter, as almost all murals can be spotted in this neighbourhood. Once the centre of the cotton industry, nowadays Manchester’s Northern Quarter is the hipster heaven of the city, and the best place to find some great street art. The most spectacular large-scale murals in the area were painted during Cities of Hope, a street art festival highlighting social injustices while raising money for Manchester charities.
Each of the nine artists who were invited to take part in the street art festival has chosen a social topic to highlight and, therefore, was matched with a local organization to champion their work.
Well known for his portraits showcasing some of film and TV’s most famous faces, Akse is a French street artist based in Manchester. He painted a portrait of David Bowie as part of the Out House Project, an outdoor project space for public art on a block of disused public toilets in Stevenson Square.
Stevenson Square
Still by Akse, is this photo-realistic graffiti portrait of Prince:
Tib Street
Axel Void (ES)
To develop the topic of “existentialism” for the Cities of Hope festival, Axel Void matched with charities working with people with mental health and anxiety issues. This work is titled “Sisyphus”, and it is inspired by Camus’ interpretation of the ancient Greek myth, where Sisyphus’ continual repetition of the punishment that Zeus had inflicted him is related to the human condition in the absurd search for meaning. This large-scale mural depicts a girl, whose smile is forced by someone else, as a metaphor of our search for happiness.
Oldham Road
Still by Axel Void is this wall made as a reaction to the painting over of Norwegian artist Martin Whatson’s piece during the Cities of Hope festival:
Read my interview with Axel Void at Nuart 2016!C215 (FR)
Christian Guémy’s social justice issue at Cities of Hope was homelessness, a topic that is not unusual in his production. The portraits that C215 painted during the festival are both based on photos of homeless people around the world by the Manchester-born photographer Lee Jeffries.
Tariff Street
Warwick Street
Beside these two large-scale pieces realized for the City of Hope conference, C215 left other smaller close-up portraits around Manchester; here are the ones I stumbled upon:
Case (DE)
At the Cities of Hope festival, Case’s social issue was disability, more specifically mental health. He worked with the charity “Back on track” and painted a hyper-realistic portrait of one of the people they support in making positive changes in their lives.
Cable Street (Swan building)
Chekos (IT)
This in the only Italian street artist that I’ve found in Manchester! This mural was painted in collaboration with PrintmySoul; it is titled “Lost Border” and it depicts the director David Lynch.
Port Street (car park)
Dale Grimshaw (UK)
Dale took part to Cities of Hope as a special guest. Here he realized one of his iconic, tribal portraits, which is dedicated to those fighting for independence in West Papua.
Spear Street
Ema (FR)
Florence Blanchard painted a long mural characterized by her iconic geometric patterns and curvy shapes. Ema’s abstract style is directly inspired by her training as a scientist and depicts molecular landscapes questioning our idea of visual perception. This mural left me with a floating sensation as if I were moving through the sea.
Tariff Street
Faith47 (SA)
For Cities of Hopes, Faith 47 chose to support gay rights by painting two men kissing. This mural perfectly fits her latest personal project, whose title (7.83 HZ) is inspired by the frequence of the inaudible atmospheric heartbeats of the Earth. This project is about the overall reverberation of our collective actions as human beings, and it is made up of moments of raw intimacy on walls, instants of connection between us such as this kiss.
Great Ancoats Street
Faunagraphic (UK)
This piece was commissioned in 2011 by Converse as part of the Wall to Wall project. Sarah Yates is an illustrator focusing on topics of environmental awareness. She is well known for mixing graffiti with graphic design and taking inspiration from nature, especially from birds, which are her favourite subjects, as we can see in this large-scale mural depicting a large blue tit.
Port Street
Hyuro (AR)
Still part of the Cities of Hope festival is this mural by Hyuro, whose social justice issue was “war children”. This intimate work shows how the artist is currently exploring a new imaginative universe, which expands beyond the social issues connected with being a woman, the topic she worked through in the past years. This wall is aimed at giving voice to the lost innocence of all children who are unable to live the childhood they deserve. I couldn’t help appreciating that, while Hyuro’s style is becoming more detailed, her surrealist sensibility is still at the core of each and every piece.
Brightwell Walk (car park)
Martin Whatson (NO)
For Cities of Hope, the Norwegian street artist brings up environmental issues by painting one of his unique and very recognizable murals that mix grey monochromatic characters done with stencils and bright coloured graffiti. Here, he gives context to a chaos of tags spray painted in many different shades of green by adding a stenciled man who is drawing the leaves onto a tree.
Mateus Bailon (BR)
His artworks are inspired by nature, animals, and the connection between human being and nature. His artistic imaginary is inhabited by fantastic creatures, especially birds, such as in “The Guardian of Ancoats”, the mural at the entrance of this former industrial neighbourhood that borders with the Northern Quarter.
Gun Street
Still by Mateus Bailon is this other vibrant large-scale mural depicting colourful and incredibly detailed birds:
Port Street (car park)
Nevercrew (CH)
At Cities of Hope, the street art duo highlighted immigration and integration by painting a huge quartz that little featureless people are trying to climb. The quartz is a metaphor of how often the central aspect of something isn’t immediately visible. Like a simultaneous vision, quartz’s twofold nature shows us the difficult conditions experienced by refugees. Through their unique, surreal imaginary the artists encourage us to think about boundaries, which can be physical as well as emotional.
Tariff Street
This work of art has recently been completed in the Northern Quarter of Manchester..
Snapped this yesterday..
^ Who is it?
Look at the New Brighton mural which recognises RNLI volunteer
09/09/2020
The latest piece of street art in New Brighton pays tribute to volunteer crew member Mike Jones who was recognised today for his 40 years service with the RNLI in the form of a giant mural.
Look at the New Brighton mural which recognises RNLI volunteer - The Guide Liverpool
^Indeedio, a great tribute.
A local artist has been transforming these road side eyesores....
Some interesting corporate street art and random other art work captured by yours truly this evening with a few drinks thrown into the mix..
Fine place to place a toilet..
The backstreets in the Northern quarter are full of artwork..
Another pint...
Find da fish...
Informative info..
Another pint..
Me buddies, singing in the rain...
Spot the art..
Oh yeah..
Old vs new..
Corporate graffiti..
That's all for now folks
Last edited by Joe 90; 09-06-2022 at 07:17 AM.
A band called the 'Blue Rinse Grannies' used to open for a band I was in, around our late teens/uni. On the piss with a forum member Robitussin 10+ years ago, turned out he was their drummer. Small world.
Good to see they shortened their name and opened a shop instead of banging out their punk/glam-rock racket.
Funnily enough, I was in this Crazy Pedro's place a few weeks ago on the Bank Holiday Monday when we played Brentford (in shot behind the blue rinse brigade). Really good pizza, but they served the beer in plastic glasses and only one size (just over half a pint).
It's that sort of stuff that puts you off going back. Just why?!??!?!?
^ Could be the Khorat based foreign pensioner gangs.
I saw some pics on social media last week of a Western lad that went to get a big มวยไทย (Muay Thai - Thai boxing, for you illiterate luddites) tattooed along the back of his forearm, but the comedian tattoo artist instead wrote ฆวยไทย
ฆวย means dick/penis.
He now has 'Thai penis' on his arm in 4 inch letters.
^ Should have done it in 2 inch letters to be more authentic.
I would imagine.
In the latter pages there is a fine line between art and graffiti.
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