As I was walking across Queen Street West a couple of days ago, I saw a pink sparkly tribute to the musician Prince who died recently. In 1993 while having contract problems with Warner Brothers, Prince changed his stage name to this symbol. It became known as the Love Symbol although he was more regularly referred to as ‘The Artist Formerly Known as Prince’ for the next seven years.
A few feet away, at the corner of Queen and Spadina I found the artist busy on another painting. Victor, as in #whatsvictorupto, was in the middle of painting a blue and purple unicorn with pink glitter too. I asked him if there was any significance to the unicorn. He said that this was going to be his ‘Year of the Unicorn’. He also mentioned that he already painted a few unicorns….
below: The finished painting
below: So far I have found two other unicorns. First, this slightly faded unicorn on a four leaf clover is painted outside the Black Irish pub on Queen Street East at Sherbourne.
below: Second, a unicorn on the sidewalk in front of Sick Kids Hospital
below: A little bit of fun – it seems that a lot of people have uploaded their pictures of the Prince painting to instagram in the past day or two!
If I see any more unicorns I’ll let you know!
as I walk Toronto 