Painting a different picture

   Anyone living in any built up area anywhere will be well aware of graffiti. Some call it a blot on the landscape, while others simply describe it as "street art". Whatever you think about it it's there and we have to recognise that it has many forms and many purposes: from the scrawled tag on a phone box, declaring "this is our place" through stenciling (a la Banksy) to make socio-political statements, to the building-sized murals that can both shock and amaze in equal measure.
   Paris being the metropolis it is, has more than its fair share and there's no fixed location either. It even seems that if you leave your van stationary for too long it'll become a canvas-on-wheels for the local taggers, street artists, call them what you will.
     In this blog I will let the pictures do the talking and please, this is an open forum, say whatever comes to mind. Talking of minds, I will just ask you to keep yours open. Oh, and if you have any examples you'd like to share, please do.

Though this first is from Dusseldorf, it and the one adjacent, are stark in their simplicity. While I'm not sure of the significance of the child, the broken images of characters from a Parisian banlieu suggest despair, but the message in the centre rings a clear bell of hope "Make hands meet".

 While walking up rue Belleville I turned around and saw this. It looks just like a crayon sketch and is all the more impressive in its simplicity.

I told you about the vans, didn't I? Made all the more amusing in this case, as you can quite clearly tell the generation of the artists concerned!

Between the left bank of the Seine and the educational edifice of Bibliotheque François Mitterand is the setting for some beautifully breathtaking street art, of which this is but one example (alight at Quai de La Gare Metro stop on the 6 and head right, along the river, to spot more). The most effective use of a box of wires as I've ever seen

  http://canalsquare.blogspot.fr/2012/08/da-cruz-graffiti-rue-de-lourcq-et-quai.html  

         for some more great Parisian street art by the artist Da Cruz.

The scenes below are a selection of pieces from my trip to Melbourne, regarded by many to be Mecca of street art, as I'm sure this series of works clearly demonstrates.

These in St Kilda tell of Aboriginal legends.

These three are from the concrete canvas of "laneways" in Melbourne town centre. The one on the left is a poster I know, but the intellectual mickey-taking just makes me giggle.

I thought I'd leave you with this from Barlcay Street, St Kilda. It's not exactly graffiti but it is urban decoration none the less and all the better for having been assembled by members of the community (each of the tiles surrounding the main frieze has been individually designed). I have included detail both funny and forceful to give you a clearer view. It's multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, beyond being pigeonholed into any one stylistic shoebox. 

  

Enough said!