painted wall

Garfield’s Street

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Here is a gallery of images (and a list of artists, from top to bottom, and from North Street to Royal Avenue) from the (Hit The North) Paint Jam last Saturday (the 25th) in Lower Garfield Street, organised by Seedhead Arts (ig) and the Belfast Improvement District (BID web).

Stag (above) by HMC (ig)
Rose by Ollie Amscai (ig)
Pigeon by Strangford (ig)
Smelling The Flowers by Lost Lines (ig)
Melting House by Illoustrates (ig)
Dexter by NRMN (ig)
Crow by MWAK (ig)
Broken Hearts by Laura Nelson (ig)
House Panels by All The Doodz (ig)
Garfield by Cha Cha (ig)
Crow Chain Gang by FGB (ig)
Geometrical Flower by Katriona (ig)
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Cat by Jam2 (ig)
SNAK by SNAK (ig)
Wasp by Conor McClure (ig)
Leopard by Friz (ig)
Seed Heads by ?
Design by Not Pop (ig)
Gremlin by Wee Nuls (ig)
Embracing Our Creativity by Zippy (ig)
plus a pair of angel’s wings on the other side of the street.

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Copyright © 2024 Paddy Duffy
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Where Strangers Meet

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Australian artist Sophi Odling (web | ig) stuck around after HTN24 and painted this piece in Whiteabbey. It is perhaps part of phase two of Antrim And Newtownabbey Borough Council’s beautification project; for phase one, see Botanical Borough.

Odling also painted a large piece for HTN24 in York Lane, called Tomorrow.

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Copyright © 2024 Paddy Duffy
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Back Of The River

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‘2 Royal Ave’ (web | ig) – the building designed by WJ Barre (Victorian Web) for the Provincial Bank and more recently a Tesco Metro – was turned into a civic and cultural centre by Belfast City Council in 2023 (Belfast Live).

Coincidentally, the building’s rear doors open into Bank Street (formerly Bank Lane) and Bank Square. (It’s not clear whether they were so named because the Farset flowed along Bank Lane, or for the Bank Buildings, constructed in Castle Place in 1785-1787 (WP | Belfast Live); in any case, the streets already had these names well before the construction of the Provincial building in 1867 (Belfast Media)).

Street artist Decoy (ig), with support from DaisyChain (ig), has painted various shutters and electrical boxes. Bank Square is also home to a series of ‘life in the old days’ panels (see A River Runs Through It) and more recent work by Rob Hilken (see The Grid) and DanK (Fast Cars).

Also included (last below) is the art on the shutters of The Sagart in Chapel Lane.

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Copyright © 2024 Paddy Duffy
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Sásta A Bheıth Anseo

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The mural on the wall of Madden’s bar in the city centre has been updated. Fiddler Art Lundy and the “decommissioned” ashtray are retained, but much else has changed. (For the previous version, see Madden’s.)

Traditional Irish and Irish-language music features in multiple places:
— a poster for new group Biird (ig) is in the mirror behind Art’s head (and next to an Acht Na Gaeılge fáınne (see #AchtAnois) and a Pride flag);
— by his fingering hand is a poster for Féıle Na Gealaí (web);
— the “Fine Art” in front of the pints is the cover of Kneecap’s (web) forthcoming album – DJ Próvaí’s familiar tricoloured balaclava can be seen on the side-door in the third image, below (see also their two murals in Beechmount, Incendiary Device and England Get Out Of Ireland);
— the album cover to its right is the EP “Sásta A Bheıth Anseo” [Happy To Be Here] by Múlú (Mıaḋaċluġaın Ní Doṁnaıll | ig) which you can hear on youtube.

The other main change is the addition of two newspapers. In the Andersonstown News in Art’s pocket trumpets Cliftonville’s 3-1 victory over Linfield in the Irish Cup on May 4th (youtube highlights), while on the table a copy of The Irish News reports on DUP (now-former) leader Jeffrey Donaldson being prosecuted on charges of rape and sexual assault (BBC).

Update: The newspaper was soon changed to DUP Backs United Ireland.

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Copyright © 2024 Paddy Duffy
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Frank McKelvey

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Francis “Frank” McKelvey grew up at 56 Woodvale Road (based on Lennon Wylie and the blue plaque on the wall at this address – Street View). That would put him a stone’s throw from Woodvale Park, which provides the backdrop for this new mural at the end of Woodvale Street. The photograph reproduced, of “Woodvale park pond”, can be seen on the Old Shankill Fb page. The pond was filled in after the second World War (City Council). McKelvey’s ‘A Summer’s Day‘ is perhaps of Woodvale Park pond. He died in 1974 (Ulster History Circle).

By Holly Hooks (ig) in Woodvale Street, west Belfast.

March 24th

February 14th

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Copyright © 2024 Paddy Duffy
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Spinning Memories

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The inspiration for this new piece of street art by KMG (ig) was the Strand Spinning Mill (formerly the Jaffe Spinning Mill) which closed in 1983 and is now the Portview Trade Centre. During WWI the mill made munitions and during WWII viscose rayon. The film Lint And Linen (youtube) covers both pre-industrial and mechanical linen-production (though mostly focused on yarn from line fibres rather than from tow, which was the Strand mill’s claim to fame (Duffy Rafferty)); the painting appears to present a more primitive and imaginary age in which fibres could be spun using the human hand.

For photographs of the old mill on the Trade Centre, see previously the image of A Block in Strand Spinning Mill.

“Spinning memories” is the name of a planned collection of stories for an archive at Portview (Portview Stories).

Townsley Street, east Belfast, next to the White Witch and facing Aslan Is On The Move.

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Copyright © 2024 Paddy Duffy
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Fast Enough So We Can Fly Away?

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These three cars are from a new piece of street art by DanK (ig) in Bank Square, Belfast city centre, on the wall of Crown Jesus Ministries (Fb) (in the Berry Street Presbyterian building), replacing the ‘Creation’ mural painted in 2012. Dan calls the piece “Hope” (ig) after the church’s ‘Hope Mission Centre’ (ig); this is the same title he gave to the geisha on the Shankill. This piece does not feature any of the kanji street-signage that would place it in Japan (compare with Night Taxi in the Woodvale), though there is some on the pink car, above.

The middle car has the license plate “OUTATIME” which was the plate on the DeLorean in ‘Back To The Future’ (see also: You Built A Time Machine … Out Of A DeLorean?)

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Copyright © 2024 Paddy Duffy
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The Big Fish

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After floating above the traffic in Shaftesbury Square for more than 60 years, the statues on the Ulster Bank building were taken down last year (2023) and packed off to the Ulster Museum (Belfast Live). The blank wall is now home to a giant, multi-eyed, fish by French artist Veks Van Hillik (ig), painted for both HTN24 and the Linen Quarter business development group (web).

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Copyright © 2024 Paddy Duffy
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The Evil Eye Can Bring A Man To His Grave And A Camel To The Cooking Pot

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We should say that this is an ugly piece of street art, so that its beauty does not attract the evil eye. The model in this new street art for HTN24, painted by Jordanian artist Yazan Mesmar (ig), is holding an amulet in order to protect herself.

The piece replaces one by emic (see The Bird Flew In, Minds Went In) in Farnham Street.

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Copyright © 2024 Paddy Duffy
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Happy Accidents

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Here is a gallery of the new street art on the south side of Kent Street, produced for Hit The North (HTN24) this weekend. Images of completed works are from May 6th; in-progress shots are from the fifth.

The tribute to Lyra McKee is still on the corner with Union Street. The piece by Mack Signs (ig), above, then follows, and, heading towards Royal Avenue, we have:

Jayde Perkin (ig)
Verz (ig)
Leo Boyd (ig)
Danni Simpson (ig)
Two small boards on the fencing, by Sweat, Tears, And The Sea (ig) and Chain Gun Art (ig)
Wee Nuls (ig) (done the previous weekend, as she then went to Glasgow Yardworks)
KAYOS (ig)
ESTR (ig) perhaps still unfinished
Kilian (ig)
Magdalena Karol (ig)
Lovely Letters (ig)
Karl Fenz (ig)
Lucie FLynn (ig)
Glen Molloy (ig)
Codo (ig)
Keyto (ig)

For the rest of Kent Street, see Eat Your Words.

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Copyright © 2024 Paddy Duffy
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