Xefil
I found this cool stencil by French Street Artist Xefil at a bus stop on Bay. I have walked past this so many times, every time thinking “oh that is cool, I want to take a picture”, yet always rushed by in a hurry and never got a picture. So finally yesterday I took the few seconds to stop and snap a photo.
Enjoy:
Xefil Toronto
Xefil
Post All the Bills
A little while ago I found one of my fav street art stencils Bill Cosby, Clinton, Murray and Gates posted around construction signs that say “Post no Bills”. Anyways this particular one, the “Post no Bills” part had worn off.
Now it has been edited again and invites more Bills:
Post all the Bills!
Robot Knows the Secret to Life, Do You?
Walking home from work, I found this little guy outside a large office building on Bay Street.
This little Robot just has it all figured out, and he shared the secret to life and happiness:
Have more fun
Robot says: Have more fun
Now you know the secret too!
Fear, Lives and Hiding in a Corner
Over the long weekend I found a few new gems!
This one you might recognize. I blogged about it before, when I found it on Church Street. Now it’s made an appearance just off Yonge Street:
Fear is a Disease
There was a new addition with this one though, just a few feet from it was this:
Lives
If you look closely, you might notice a white patch. Is it just my imagination or is that the CN Tower. Does it mean Toronto LIVES? So cool, I love trying to decipher meanings!!
Close look (Do you see the CN tower?)
I felt filled with the wisdom from the streets, and later when I saw this monk-looking guy hiding in a weird alley type corner on Dundas West it just seemed perfect. Not to mention the colour scheme is dead on:
Monk in a corner
Mural Mural on the Wall (& I’m Sorry)
I want to apologize to all my avid followers for the unexplained hiatus that I have taken. I have had so much going on and was unable to share my finds.
I hope that sharing this abundance of pictures of an amazing UB5000 mural can convince you to forgive me (I thought the mural was pretty special myself):
The mural on the building
Opposite side
Middle (UB5000 chick)
Chick Fountain
Close up
It’s all in the details (love this skull with a bow!)
Oysta Chick
Chick in a jet
dragon!
If you couldn’t tell from past posts, I really love UB5000′s work. Check out this gallery of all his work I have photographed.
Beauty and the beast
After coming back home from a particularly long graffiti hunt I decided to look through all my pictures again. That’s when I found that the order of these photo’s was totally humourous check it out:
First, was this feminine curvy figure. Someone had written in a powerful message to “Save Eden” and go to conflictminerals.org. Underneath an imitation of the Apple logo in the shape of Africa, saying icare. But the imagery of “Eden” being on the women’s ass has a lot of imagery and double meaning there.
Eden
Next was the wicked mural of a lady Octopus:
Armoured Soul
Then suddenly the next picture I switched to shocked and scared me!
The Beast
All those lovely girly works and then bam! This scary monster. I love the colours, the yellow eyes make it look positively evil!
Peacock Territory
I found this wicked cool peacock which you will notice if you look closely, that its entire tail is made of houses. Pretty neat!!
Peacock ‘Hood
It does annoy me that someone wrote on it with black marker. Respect good pieces please!
Anyways, that Peacock must get pretty hungry staring at this all day long:
Cookie Monster
It’s not just even cookie monster in his pile of sweets, but its on a Subway too!!
Sing for Absolution
Recently I photographed this, saying “beg for absolution” on an abandoned apartment building on Havelock.
This building mesmerized and excited me so I always pay attention to it. I especially like seeing new additions to older pieces. So I was excited to find this:
Beg/ Sing for Absolution
The word beg being crossed out and changed to sing made it inspirational.
Sing
There were a few other messages scrawled on the other boarded up doors, but to be honest they were not inspirational and kinda scary so I opted not to photograph them.
There was one other that I did take a pic of because it had a message that made it a little more light-hearted.
Check out this sad message:
I have zero self control
The smaller words underneath gave it a more light-hearted feel:
Well, nobody likes being bossed around
Then I saw my absolute most favourite part of the building:
Raccoon
Raccoon
Art Soothes Pain
“People have been thinking for too long that art is a privilege of the museums and the rich…Art is not business. ART is food…you can’t eat it but it feeds you. ART has to be cheap and available to everybody. It needs to be everywhere because it is inside you. Because ART Soothes pain.”
Art Soothes Pain
This is the message I found scrawled over the ground near the end of Graffiti Alley. What a wonderful message and such a powerful place to find it. I had to take numerous shots to capture the entire message and reconstruct it once I got home… but here are the shots:
Alex reading
Top corner
Top right corner
Bottom right corner
I also really love how the pavement looks so dark, almost more like a chalk board because it had been raining all morning.
Hey Fat Bird, Y R U So Awesome???
Another wonderful UB5000 find.
UB5000′s signature piece in all of his murals is always the addition of the little chicks. In this one, it’s far from a little chick..but a big hungry bird! He’s got his fork in hand!
Y R U So Awesome?!
