This piece of street art by Zabou (ig) on the old Telegraph offices, painted for HTN24, is about 50 feet/16 metres tall, dwarfing Alice Pasquini’s Glide and BUST’s piece of neo-pop at the corner of Royal Avenue and Donegall Street.
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“Silence falls in the hole on the hedges, in half-/Opened windows. Tall hollow chimneys wide/Alleyways the seconds before the last school/bell before summer.//Joy is found in one place/Where roses bloom/Bees return once more/Dogs wag their tails/Children waiting patiently in the ice-cream line/Here in Botanic Gardens.” – Nandi Jola.
Jola (ig) is a South-African-born poet and story-teller who moved to Northern Ireland when she was 21 (Belonging Project | Flood).
Collingwood Avenue, Holylands, south Belfast.
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Above is a new piece by printmaker (turned street artist) Strangford (ig) on the metal plate in the facade of School Days uniform store. Immediately below is rampaging bull (artist unknown) a few doors down (roughly 432 and 440 Newtownards Rd). And completing the menagerie is a version of Aslan the lion by David Creative (ig), at the CS Lewis square.
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This is a new mural on boards celebrating boxing in the Turf Lodge area of west Belfast.
Belfast Boxers (ig) gives the names as (l-r) Eoin Hamill, Damaen Kelly, John Ireland, Dee Irving, Damien Fryers, Sean/Jim “Spike” McCormack, Sean McComb.
Hamill (the youngster on the far left) was knocked down and killed on the Springfield Road in 2020 (BelTel | BBC | Irish Times). John Ireland (third from left, with blue collar) died in a crash 2014 at age 20 (Belfast Media).
Norglen Gardens.
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In the myth of ‘The Pied Piper Of Hamelin’, the piper leads the children away from the village of Hamelin after the mayor there refuses to pay him for charming away their rat infestation. The piper takes his revenge and only the lame child, the deaf child, and the blind child survive to tell the tale. (Here is Browning’s poetic version, along with 30 other references.)
This piper at Holy Trinity primary school (web) and St Martin’s nursery (web) in Turf Lodge might be thought to be leading them away from their parents and into school, but as the final image makes clear, they are on their way to a cavern underground.
The source for the mural is perhaps the painting at The Palace Hotel, in San Francisco (WP).
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This piece is on the same office-building as the ‘Be Your Best’ piece featured previously (in Auld Cobblers) at the city-side entrance to east Belfast, at the junction of Middlepath Street and Newtownards Road. Both are by Dee Craig/Belfast Mural Arts (Fb) as part of East Belfast Enterprise’s (web | ig) ‘Connecting Communities Through Art’ initiative. The two works were officially launched together on April 20th (pics on EBE’s Instagram). The two in-progress shots (last below) are from April 16th.
According to this Community NI article, the work has been installed using “a jigsaw-like technique using super strength glue to give it a lifespan of up to 25 years before requiring maintenance”.
Interpretations of the new piece are encouraged; feel free to comment or e-mail.
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“But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.”” Isaiah 43 continues: “When you pass through the waters I will be with you … When you walk through the fire, you will not be scorched.” Thus, although the text is addressed to Jacob/Israel and the lion is a symbol of Jacob’s son Judah, whose eponymous tribe later gives its name to the Jews, Christians interpret it more generally as a promise to all believers.
In this way, this new board at Rehoboth Evangelical Mission in Mount Vernon is perhaps in the same tradition as the previous board, with its quote from John 11 (in the New Testament) promising that believers shall never die (X04693).
The inclusion of the flag of modern Israel which dates back to the Zionist movement in the late 1800s, however, gives this board a political edge, seeming to make it a token of support for Israel in its current conflict with Hamas and attack on the Gaza Strip. (The roaring lion and the lightning also give a sense of physical power.) As such, it would be (to our knowledge) the first printed board in support of Israel and an advance over the more typical flying of the Israeli flag.
Hill & White (2007 – paywall) begin their article with a survey of newspaper articles (including this free piece in Salon) about the flying of Israeli flags in Northern Ireland in 2002, explaining the practice as a response to the flying of Palestinian flags during the Second Intifada (p. 33) and an expression of admiration for Israeli’s use of physical force against its minority population (p. 37). The first appearance of an Israeli flag in the Peter Moloney Collection is from 2006, at a republican bonfire site.
If the Rehoboth board is counted as religious rather than political, the most sophisticated graphical expression of PUL support for Israel is the small paste-up seen in Ulster Supports The People Of Israel. (There is also implicit support for Israel in the board in Peter’s Hill to John Henry Patterson, which includes amongst his other exploits – including Operation Lion – his role as Godfather Of The Israeli Army.)
See also: PUL swastika graffiti 1985 | 1993 | 2008 | BelTel 2015
See also: Rehoboth The Well
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“Ulster is ours”, says James Craig, first prime minister of Northern Ireland, in (a reproduction of) an election poster from c. 1940 (according to Whyte’s). If it is for his own seat in North Down, for Stormont – rather than a poster for the Ulster Unionist candidates in by-elections – it might be from 1938 (WP).
Rockview Street, Village, south Belfast. There are/have been other vintage posters reproduced in the Village – see previously: The Red Hand And The Winning Hand. Also from the Village is a current board employing the phrase “We have what we hold”.
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This is a piece of commercial street art painted at the corner of Marlborough Avenue and Lisburn Road on the wall of the Juice Jar (ig) by Visual Waste (ig). It uses the character of ‘the joker’ as played by Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight (2008); his catch-phrase “Why so serious?” has become “Why so juicy?”
See previously: the joker and catwoman in the city centre.
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The grey heron is common throughout Ireland (Ulster Wildlife) including the walls of the Cregagh Road (the side of Haus Of Hair, site of Glen Molloy’s tribute to Carrie Fisher).
The work is by Sheffield artist Peachzz (ig), organised by Cregagh-Woodstock Traders (Fb) with support from Belfast City Council (web).
Also in the Woodstock-Cregagh project: Down The Woodstock | Up The Cregagh | Back On The Streets
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