Waterford Walls 2017

caoilfhionn_hanton

2017 is the third year of Waterford Walls festival. They say there are 40 artists working in the streets, some names are already familiar from the previous years. This year’s festival hosts artists from five continents – Australia, both Americas, Africa and Europe.

In the picture below: Sarah Jane Hanton, Visual media and event manager, and Gabe McGuinness, Assistant project manager.

WATERFORD WALLS

I start with the New Street Gardens, a temporary community park built on the derelict site in 2014. Edel Tobin, founder of the Gardens, is also the founder of the Waterford Walls festival. There is plenty of wall space for artists and their projects. My opening image is the work of Caoilfhionn Hanton, 19 years old artist from Tramore, Waterford. Caoilfhionn is a veteran of Waterford Walls.

(Click on the images to enlarge them if you want to see more details)

These Love Hearts are the work of Kevin Bohan , Ireland.

kevin_bohan

Louise McKenna, Waterford based artist.

louise_mckenna

SHUK , Ireland.

SHUK

ADOR, Fance, and SHUK.

ADOR, SHUK

I am leaving the Gardens and walk up the hill, in direction to the Barrack Street. There I find a few more works.

ADOR, France. The Cloud. I love this character 🙂

ADOR

OMIN, from Dundalk, Ireland.

OMIN

The side wall of Bobby’s Bar is particularly loved by artists. This time there is a stunning work of  SONNY , British born artist based in South Africa. Electric Fury!

SONNY

I turn to the Major’s Walk.

ANIMALITO LAND, brilliant artist Graciela Gonçalves Da Silva from Argentina.

animalito_land

Looking down to Stephen Street I see another work. CRUINNIU WALLS – Louisa Donnelly & Ciara McKenna, Ireland.

CRUINNIU

I walk down the hill again, but cannot get a closer picture because of the parked cars. Next to CRUINNIU’s work, I see the Irish graffiti godfather RASK, from Drogheda, giving a lesson (workshop?) to a lone student.

RASK

There is another work of SHUK in Michael Street.

SHUK

It had been raining almost every day during the festival. Some artists from ‘dry’ countries had a hard time in Waterford helplessly watching paint drip down their works. The artists from the Emerald Island were not bothered.

VERZ, artist based in Belfast, working away in the rain.

verz

verz

I am heading to the Patrick Street where, according to the Festival map, I will find SMUG and FIVE8 working on their projects. No such luck, but I see another artist who has just started working. It is Jonny McKerr, or JMK, from Belfast.

The artist works in a steady pace, regardless of the weather.

JMK

JMK

JMK

This is the final image. Beautiful.

JMK

James Earley’s work still stays unfinished.

james_earley

Thank you for taking the tour around Waterford Walls. You might love to visit Graffiti Lux and Murals blog by Resa McConaghy from Toronto, Canada and enjoy the ephemeral art of murals.

More works in my next blog post.

www.inesemjphotography.com Have a wonderful weekend!

107 comments

    1. Thank you Imelda! Some of them stay since the first festival in 2015, and I think it is all about agreement between the artist and the city. I remember one work that was removed in a couple of months after it was done.

  3. Ok

    สรรพชัยพรขุนทด

    เมื่อ 4 ก.ย. 2017 02:07 “Making memories” เขียนว่า

    inesephoto posted: ” 2017 is the third year of Waterford Walls festival. They say there are 40 artists working in the streets, some names are already familiar from the previous years. This year’s festival hosts artists from five continents – Australia, both Americas, Afri”

  4. Great pieces of art works! They are amazing and some look so real as it would be on typical painting style using paint brushes while these were by spray cans. I do like “The Cloud” character too.

    1. Thank you! Isn’t it amazing how they use a spray can. Such precision, every stroke goes exactly where it is supposed to go. Some of them use brushes too. I have one more post with more murals.
      The Cloud character is so very funny 🙂

  7. What a treat for the eyes, Inese! 🙂 Excellent shots make for a gorgeous post. Thanks for sharing your big-wide world with us! Peace and luvz, Uncle Tree

  9. Great works, Inese! Admittedly I have 2 faves, the tiger by Sonny from Belfast, and the girl’s face in the flowers by JMK.
    All works are wonderful, and I am elated you went to the festival and made this post!
    Thank you so much, Inese, for giving my graf blog a shout out at the end.
    I will reblog this, but I have a few commitments ahead. I think the reblog will be in about 10 days – 2 weeks from now.
    Have you seen me model the graffiti gown on my Art Gowns blog? If not I hope you will check it out! xoxo

  12. If it wasn’t for music, my second choice in life would have been quality graffiti. The flaw in my theory is that I’m no good at it.

    1. I have no idea how they can do that spray painting. I would love to learn just to paint something small, for home and family 🙂 My only ‘murals’ have been the paintings I did in our bathroom some 30 years ago 🙂 It was cool though 🙂

  13. Interesting. I like the scenes and portraits best. I don’t care for most graffiti art, since I do live in California where this is found everywhere in general and not quite so lovely.

    1. Oh I can imagine. It can be annoying I guess 🙂 We are not that ‘spoiled’ and every splash of bright color makes us happy 🙂 It is a young festival. They started in 2015. In my next post there are more works. Some of these artists are very famous and have their work commissioned all over the world.

      1. That’s amazing. Our community has been wanting to decorate downtown (it’s a small town) with murals. Having an event like that would be so much fun!!

        1. You can do it. You can invite the artists, and may be organize the sponsorship. First of all you have to know which walls can be legally painted 🙂

              1. When I told my husband what I was thinking, he said “oh no! The last time you did that they wanted to make you mayor!” That was true, our mayor was going on to run for senator, so there was going to be a vacancy and they already figured out who they wanted. LOL However, I soon moved to California. Whew!

    1. Yes, it is a beautiful piece. First she colored the background and I thought that it was just a sunset, and then she started working on the trees. In my next post there are a few more amazing works from some well known artists.

  17. What a talented bunch of artists. Thanks for sharing your photos and the links. Good thing we don’t have to pick a favourite. 🙂

  19. Wow! The paintings are amazing and some detailed. I don’t know how an artist can paint up close and then get the whole painting just right without any obvious mistakes in the execution of the painting. 🙂

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