painting | as I walk Toronto

Posts Tagged ‘painting’

distress at Union Station

Posted: July 16, 2015 in locations, public art
Tags: art, blue, child, depressing, figures, grey, line drawings, man, men, northbound, paint, painting, people, phones, platforms, poetry, public art, red, red face, reflections, sadness, sitting, sketches, standing, subway, Toronto, TTC, Union station, watching, woman, women

A while back, I posted some photos of ‘Zones of Immersion’, Stuart Reid’s art installation at Union Station. Now that it is completed, I decided to revisit it. There has been some talk about how depressing it is.
I’ll let you decide whether it is depressing or not.

If you are on the ‘northbound to Finch’ platform you get a clear view of all the panels.
If you are on the ‘northbound to Downsview’ platform you can only see some of the glass panels.

I’ve now been back a number of times and this is what I saw:
1) Of the figures with discernible gender, 12 or 13 were male.
2) The males are of different ages and shapes.
3) The number of females outnumber males by at least 2:1.
4) Almost all (or even all?) of the women are young. They are all thin, if not gaunt.
5) There is one child…. with a finger up his/her nose.
6) Only two or three figures are smiling.

“the way we settle into a seat
the way we stretch when the train is empty
and retract as it fills
the way we deflect a glance and simultaneously present
language of the body claiming, relinquishing and balancing
personal space in the interstitial realm
halfway between the worlds of here and there”

The panels that can be seen on the ‘northbound to Downsview’ platform are seen as the reverse of those viewed from the other platform.

“slicing through the clay of the earth’s first skin
steel rails and electric lines
going from going to
slicing through time and distance
darkness and light
station by station
releasing us into the city’s fabric
stop by stop
after a days labour
taking us home”

(added in October) I got off the subway at Union Station today. There were three guys in front of me. One of them stopped and pointed to the nearest painting which happened to be the one above. As he pointed he said “See what I mean, if that doesn’t make you want to jump… “.

I’m happy to be corrected if you can prove me wrong.

the painting of a mural

Posted: July 15, 2015 in graffiti and street art, public art
Tags: animals, birds, Church St., creatures, downtown, faces, hands, mural, mural routes, Nunavut, painting, parking lot, Piliriqatigiingniq, scaffolding, snow, stylized, sun, symbolism, Toronto, winter, youth

Piliriqatigiingniq

This mural is on the south wall of Hosteling International on Church St.,
and in a parking lot on Court St.,
just north of King St. East and across from St. James Cathedral.

Painted July 2015

This project was a collaboration between Mural Routes and the Nunavut Arts and Crafts Association. Artists were youth from Cape Dorset as well as graduates from Toronto’s Oasis Skateboard Factory: Latch Akesuk, Audi Qinnuayuaq, Cie Taqiasuq, Parr Etidloie, Julieta Arias and Moises Frank.

from Portland to Niagara

Posted: July 10, 2015 in graffiti and street art, locations
Tags: alley, art, birdo, calvin and hobbes, clowntearz, cruz1, crwales66, Elicser, face, garages, Graffiti Alley, grominator, guitars, happy face, ice cream, kill'em with niceness, Kim Jong, letter, lovebot, man, painting, rainbow, stencils, stickers, street art, sundae, tags, unicorns, wallnoize, woman, words, yipyaps

A few days ago I posted a series of photos of some of the graffiti and street art that I saw in Graffiti Alley between Portland and Spadina. This post is a continuation of that one as it consists of the photos that I took on the same day but in a different section of the alley, between Portland and Niagara streets.

a fresh coat

Posted: March 31, 2015 in graffiti and street art
Tags: alley, cold fingers, graffiti, Graffiti Alley, lane, painting, spray paint, tags, Toronto

Repainting a wall in Graffiti Alley

Regent Park hoardings

Posted: March 13, 2015 in graffiti and street art, locations, public art
Tags: animals, boy, colorful, colours, community, construction site, diversity, Elicser, faces, graffiti, hands, hawk, heads, hoardings, men, mural, painting, Patch Project, people, public art, Regent Park, renewal, St. David St., street art, stylized, take flight, Toronto, women

Located at the northwest corner of Regent Park Blvd and St. David St.,
(which is south of Dundas East and east of Sackville)
painted on the wood hoardings around a construction site.

This wall was painted as part of The Patch Project
PATCH = “Public Art Through Construction Hoarding”

Unfortunately, one photo that is missing is one of the section of the wall that is a large section that says “Conquer Adversity with Diversity”, the title of this work.

More information on The Patch Project

Bathhouse raids mural

Posted: February 12, 2015 in graffiti and street art, history, locations
Tags: 1981, arrests, bathhouse raids, Church St., firetruck, history, LGBT, mosaic, murals, painting, police car, public art, street art, tiles, Toronto

The Bathhouse Raids by Christiano De Araujo is a mural on Church Street just south of Carlton.
Completed in the fall of 2013, it was the largest of the Church St. Mural Project pieces commissioned for WorldPride 2014.

The following photos were taken with a very wide angle lens
because of the size of the mural and because there are always cars parked in front of it.

On the 5th of February, 1981, Toronto police raided four bathhouses in what was known as ‘Operation Soap’.
Around 300 men were arrested. Most charges connected to the incident were eventually dropped or discharged, although some bathhouse owners were fined.

The event marked a major turning point in the history of the LGBT community in Canada.
The raids led to protests – the night after the raids, 3,000 people marched on 52 Division police headquarters and on Queen’s Park, smashing car windows and setting fires. That spring the city held its first Pride Parade.

Douglas Coupland at the ROM

Posted: February 5, 2015 in galleries
Tags: abstract, art, blocks, building blocks, Canadian, childrens, colorful, colourful, Douglas Coupland, exhibition, expressions, focus, found objects, looking at art, looking at the world, onto, painting, people, phones, ROM, Royal Ontario Museum, sculpture, smartphones, Toronto

Douglas Coupland: everywhere is anywhere is anything is everything

Royal Ontario Museum
until April 26, 2015

The 21st Century Condition
“I want to explore how it feels to be inside the 21st century brain as opposed to the 20th century brain”

Painted with dots. When they are hanging on the wall, they look abstract.
When they are shrunk down and viewed on a smartphone, the picture comes into focus.

update: Here is an interesting article that appeared in the Torontoist on 24th Feb about this exhibit.

by kids

Posted: December 7, 2014 in locations
Tags: Adam Beck Junior public school, art, artwork, buildings, city, CN Tower, dogs, elementary, exhibit, fence, flowers, houses, ladybug, mural, outdoors, painting, Scarborough, scenes, school, students, sun, Toronto, trees

On a fence at Adam Beck Junior Public school in Scarborough is a wonderful “mural” composed of pictures painted by some of the students. Kudos to all involved in the project!

A “Danger due to construction” sign, the CN Tower and a Toronto police car.
Ladybugs, flowers and trees.
On the very right is a picture that looks like a sunset or sunrise. What you probably can’t read are the words written on the blue stripe. They say, “the story of my life”.

Buses, soccer balls and a hat left on the fence.
Another CN Tower, an arena, and ice cream.
Stop bullying too.

A Canadian flag and the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Scarfo Lane

Posted: November 29, 2014 in graffiti and street art, locations
Tags: alley, bird houses, birds, blue, carrying, city, deer, dog, flowers, flying logs, garage door, graffiti, lane, logs, machinery, murals, painting, paisley, red, street art, Toronto, urban

Yesterday I came across some interesting colourful garage doors on Scarfo Lane that I have not seen before. I didn’t see any signature on them so I don’t know who painted them.

Walking south from Herrick Street…..

and then walking north from Herrick St…..

an alley with garages on both sides, also tall trees that have lost their leaves, small piles of dead leaves along the sides of the alley.

Looking north from Herrick St.

under the tracks at Bathurst

Posted: November 28, 2014 in graffiti and street art, locations
Tags: bathurst st., bike, boys, bridge, city, cyclist, Elicser, faces, feet, girders, girls, hands, men, miniature, murals, painting, people, railway, reaching, road, sitting, sneakers, street art, Toronto, underpass, urban, watching, women

Murals painted by Elicser in 2014, under the railway bridge on Bathurst St., just north of Dupont.

It is difficult to do justice to the paintings with a camera because of the structure of the bridge. The following images are ones that I took yesterday. Yes, there are many!