not always easy to find more than your typical tourist street art in penang but found a few gems of malay street art & penang graffiti during a quick wander before my friend’s wedding. amazing range here from beaututiful freestyle street art to very clearly politically motivated graffiti (stencil and freestyle) reflecting some of the current tensions in malaysia — even in the sleepy seaside island.
was in perth for the weekend. what does the parking lot across for the cool-kid hangout serving only (meet-craving inducing) grass-fed burgers with gourmet toppings? a bit of graffiti-cum-street-art. this stuff was clearly commissioned so calling it australian graffiti is pushing it but couldn’t pass up a few picts. (does the building-tall red/back/white one feel like a parking lot take on religious art to anyone else?)
was in kuching for a weekend of caving. stumbled on a great restaurant down a tiny ally next to bishop’s gate, which also sported an amazing assortment of graffiti. sadly the bar didn’t have any info about who lent their paint cans to this. can still enjoy the freestyle skills though.
not a bad graffiti / bali wall art spot & shoot from a back of a scooter. hoping to find more good stuff next trip.
although no excuse for slacking on posting, i did abscond to chaing mai, thailand for four weeks in june/july to get my yoga teacher certification (woohoo!). ever on the lookout for graffiti, found a couple of good examples.
for these images, the first three are on wualai rd, near wat srisuphan (aka the silver temple — see a silver temple photo gallery). that street is also where you’ll find chiang mai’s saturday market. last thai graffiti pict is near a great veggie restaurant called taste of heaven where i took an awesome vegetarian cooking class (veggie pad thai and spring rolls anyone?).
for the last two, the second to last is the saturday market which had some great local crafts & street-side foot massages. the last pict is my yoga teacher cert from yoga institute/wise living yoga for proof i wasn’t just eating pad thai for a month. i’m pretty excited to start teaching in hk.
there was actually a ton more great thai graffiti in chiang mai, but all too often i passed it in a songtail &/or tuk tuk, so i couldn’t get a good shot. guess that just means i’ll have to go back.
was in chengdu last weekend visiting the panda reserve (see some picts below) & a friend. there wasn’t much interesting graffiti but did come across this piece down a small alley near the main mao statue.
i love that last photo, so similar to what many friend look like on a lazy sunday afternoon.
went to taipei to visit a friend last weekend. although we didn’t get to see tons of graffiti that wasn’t simple tags, i did manage to find one fun one near the amazing beef noodle shop (okay, “shop” might be a bit of an overstatement) we hit called lindongfang. my noodles topped with layou above.
lamma (南丫島) feels like worlds away from hong kong, perfect for a quick day trip. someone with a spray can & a few new stencils to test out beat me there though, leaving an anti-consumerism message (photo 1), mao bust & a tasteful nude to line the walk to the beach. i’m a fan of how photo 5 turned out, our shadows somehow work into the shot perfectly. wonder when we’ll see these stencils popping up in central.
although i generally stick to graffiti photos, couldn’t help including a couple from our day out there, we couldn’t have asked for better weather. check out photo 9: a local man (maybe in his 70s or 80s) who has a small vegetable farm/patch & grows all his produce organically (minus the certification). you can buy veggies from him as you pass, but if you don’t make it you’ll probably get a taste anyway since some of the local restaurants buy from him as well.
there’s so much more to macau than its casino-dominated, tourist-packed reputation suggests. walk down the city’s smaller streets to get away from the religious relic-seeking masses to see some local art work.
most of these were taken in a single alley off rua da pedro nolasco da silva.