A variation on Leo Boyd’s (web) Freshly Made For You! (and Winding Up The Peelers) outside Artcetera (web | ig | Fb) (formerly the Red Barn Gallery) off Rosemary Street, Belfast, with two other pieces by unknown artists (replacing Turning Towards The Sun). (The trio is soon joined by Wee Nuls’s Medusa.)
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Copyright © 2021 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Work by Friz (web) at the Spectrum Centre (Fb) on the Shankill Road, next to Loyalist Or Racist and Half Human by emic.
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Work by emic (web) at the Spectrum Centre (Fb) on the Shankill Road, between Loyalist Or Racist and Not Today, Satan. Not Today by Friz.
The top (human) half of this image is perhaps a reproduction of this Jason Rosewell photograph.
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Copyright © 2021 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Work by BORE and NOTA in the Kent Street car park. Please comment or e-mail if you can shed any light. Update: 2009 youtube interview by an American tourist in City Cemetery.
Painted over My Best Life.
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Copyright © 2021 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Dan Kitchener (web) added a side wall to his large mural in Enfield Street in the Woodvale. According to the man himself, the scene is Tokyo rather than Soho.
For the large piece, see Night Taxi. Also by DanK on the lower Shankill: The Greater Shankill.
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“Shhhhhhhh, it’s a secret. Don’t tell anyone!” Who did this piece of street art? We don’t know. Maybe that’s the secret? Next to Mark Worst’s (ig | web) “The Muse/Erin” piece on Glendermott Road, in the Londonderry Waterside.
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Copyright © 2021 Andy McDonagh/Eclipso Pictures (ig | Fb)
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London street artist Dan Kitchener (web | tw | ig) is back on the Shankill (after recently completing Night Taxi) painting in an even bolder location: where Night Taxi was up around the bend in the Woodvale, the new piece – “Hope” – is at the bottom of the Shankill on Northumberland Street and moreover sits atop Conor’s Corner (2015 | 2021).
Both murals feature Tokyo landscapes (as is the case with Dan’s work) but a geisha is featured here rather than a familiar black taxi. “The wall is dedicated to Sandra- サンドラ. Sandra McCurry worked and owned Mikala’s Kitchen on The Shankill Road, Sandra worked tirelessly for the local community and sadly passed away” (Belfast Walking Tours Fb).
These two murals represent the strongest incursion of street art beyond the city centre and into “sectarian” areas. Reaction has been correspondingly mixed: while no one doubts the craftsmanship and aesthetic value, one twitter user (echoed by various others) asks “What is it’s [sic] relevance to the Shankill? Or is it just a lovely mural?” Dan has travelled in Japan and takes actress Ayumi LaNoire “the pole dancing geisha” (IMDb | vimeo | Afloat on vimeo) as muse (Inspiring City) but taken straightforwardly as a representation of a classical geisha this could appear an act of fetishising cultural appropriation. See also: DanK’s geisha in Belfast city centre, The Dream. See also: Visual History 11 on the rise of street art.
Conor’s Corner itself replaced a Shankill Protestant Boys mural.
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Copyright © 2021 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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“Where was all the street art over lockdown????” TMN [The Most Nasty] krew take to North Street with a long piece celebrating comic-book characters The Bash Street Kids, who have appeared in The Beano since 1954; the comic itself has been published weekly since 1938 (WP). They are (above) Danny and Plug, (below) Toots, Wilfrid, Sidney, Spotty, Teacher, Fatty/Freddy, Smiffy, Cuthbert.
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Monkeys (perhaps Mizaru and Iwazaru – most recently referenced in the George Floyd mural) wearing masks to avoid evil thought and spreading coronavirus. Street art by Glen Molloy (ig | Fb) in North Street. The remains of Andy Council’s Belfast Phoenix is to the left.
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Holy Cross [Boys] Primary School [“HCPS”] distributes student into four “houses” within the school for motivational purposes but unlike the four houses of Hogwarts (Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, Slytherin) these are named for famous philosophers. Students in all seven years take one hour of philosophy a week – staff are trained by The Philosophy Foundation (HCPS Prospectus) – and they now have a mural just outside the school gates to encourage them in the four “R”s – “reflective, reasoned, responsive, re-evaluative”. The mural shows a student (Conor) sitting in the pose of Auguste Rodin’s Le Penseur/The Thinker, bringing to mind sayings of the four philosophers: (from left to right) “Quality is not an act, it is a habit” – Aristotle; “I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think” – Socrates; “He who knows only his own side knows little” – JS Mill; “Philosophy begins in wonder” – Plato.
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Extramural Activity 