5 Pieces of Ironic Street Art

(if you’re into dad jokes- like me- as you should be)

1. Complicated Anser or Simple Anser

Real vs Simple Anser

The Anser Face has become a staple of the Toronto graffiti scene. Each find of one of these beautiful faces allows the onlooker to see a new person, so similar, yet different in their subtleties.

Here, someone saw the Anser face in all its complicated beauty, and mirrored it ironically, with the “simple Ansr” – the spelling error only adds to the irony and reflection of “real life”- go for the truth rather than the simple “Anser”. Okay, i’ll stop going deeper now before I ruin the chuckle of irony.

2. Danger due to…

Art can be dangerous..

Danger…

Danger signs, posted near construction zones or worksites let us know of impending danger, and typically the reason, as logic follows, if a sign simply said “Danger do not enter” the whole cat and curiosity thing comes into play.

Our first sign here, was not filled out, allowing one cheeky passer-by to capitalize on one of our current apocalyptic obsessions- zombies!! No one seemed to be running for their lives though.

Danger…

Our second sign probably goes to show how little we pay attention to these warnings, but for those who do… Stuff Fall’n- straight forward enough to me, regardless of what, I don’t want it fall’n on me!

3. The Steps of Evolution

Steps of Evolution 

                   ›First let me say, I promise an entire post of this piece by Evolve and the steps eventually, I was rushed and wasn’t able to get them all at the time.‹

This piece takes the process of evolution on human scale, and not just any human scale, but a “nerdy”(?) one. Trace your favourite nerds from the beginning of time and onwards. From push-cart to silcon valley employee on his google-glass operated iSegway. 😉

Jockey and his horse

Silicon Valley employee on his way to work

 4. Billy the Hatebot

Billy the Dick

If you have been to Toronto, you know the now infamous (or irritatingly overdone) Lovebot. While Lovebot has an awesome theme, meaning and concept behind it, creator Del Degan may have gone a little overboard. You can’t seem to take two steps in this city without a stubbing your toe on a Lovebot. Photographing Lovebot work on its own would be two full time jobs. I guess for the record, he wasn’t kidding when he called it a #LovebotInvasion.

So, enter Billy, the nemesis of our Lovebot. The self proclaimed Hatebot, is everything Lovebot is not. While Lovebot promotes love between everyday people, friends and strangers, billy is one thing (quite literally), a straight up dick (see photo for proof).

Lovebot Heart

Since I’m talking Lovebot, might as well throw this one in, it does hit the marker of irony. Falling in love is (usually) a two way street- and this sign capitalizes on the street sign to add a heart and show how traffic is just like love, two way traffic, but mess up and risk being run over, or a head on collision.

5. Pathetic Slogan 

Pathetic Slogan 

Pathetic Slogan

Their slogan might be pathetic, but hey, it’s all theirs.

 

 

Surface Salvaged- Anser Exhibit

February 11th-28th 2016, the Hashtag Gallery on Dundas West hosted its second Anser Exhibit, title “Surface Salvaged”.

Anser Face Gallery Exhibit- Surface Salvaged

If you’re an avid Street Inspired follow, you’ll know that Anser is one of my favourite Toronto street artists. His beautiful and unique faces can be found around all around Toronto.

This exhibit showcases Anser’s work is focused on medium and impression. The show is focused on using objects and architectural surfaces repurposed from destroyed and dilapidated locations throughout Toronto, Anser incorporates their iconic, mysterious face into reclaimed relics of the city’s past.

Said of this show, “Lifted from the palimpsest of urban decay, the found materials of Surface Salvaged find new life under Anser’s notorious insignia, and serve as unanchored canvases that mimic and retain the immediacy of the artist’s street work. Each piece speaks to the contradictory state our cities inhabit, so permanent in material yet mutable and ephemeral in the process of urban evolution. A route that is mirrored within the nature of graffiti itself, here salvaged is not only of the materials used but preserving the impermanent markings Anser leaves on the walls of Toronto.”

I find these ideas incredibly fascinating, as this is something that has always drawn me so intensely to graffiti and street art, the idea that the art is put there, but then left to the city, to change, to evolve, to destroy, to morph into something else. I especially love this idea in the city of Toronto, the idea of the permanence of material yet ephemeral in the process, working along side the architecture of Toronto.

This city is so full of the mixture and fusion of new and old. There are building in Toronto that are a part of our heritage that have been standing for generations, yet all over the city new condo’s and buildings are being erected and taking away these older buildings. However, this is not always the case, when a new building takes over an old building with history and meaning, something always remains. There are new buildings that are using the foundation of older ones and combining both together. This trend can be seen all over Toronto, from office buildings- there is one on St.Thomas street, using a row of old houses and creating, new glass office space behind the old facade. And one just like this idea on Prince Arthur. Old factories are being turned into lofts (think Chocolate Factory lofts), old churches converted into condos. The old Maple Leaf Gardens, the facade the same, yet the interior turned into a Loblaws.

These pieces of permanent material have new life breathed into them. Part of them still stands, a reminder, always there, but changed forever. The facade of these buildings still stands, you can feel and see the history of what they once were, now transformed into something new to suit the needs of today.

I love the combination of this idea with the basis of the Anser exhibit. Anser’s artwork has such a beauty to it, a contrast against the material. The material is salvaged, it’s old, worn in, full of history. The face is new, full of such beauty, but also mystery. It creates this unity and fusion of new and old, reflecting the way things can change, gain new life, and represent absolute beauty.

Here are images from the show, displaying the fusion of the salvaged material and the beautiful Anser faces added to the facade. 

Brick Work

Wall of images

Gold on Black

Brick work with colours

Grey Stone

Black Stone

Close up of 3 Gold faces

Red and White Brick

Red and Coloured

Neighbourhood Watch

The streets of Toronto are now safer than ever as mythical creatures, movie characters, super heroes and action figures swoop in to protect our communities.

The hulk, agents Mulder and Scully, Spider Man and the likes have put aside any differences they may have to join together as the Neighbourhood Watch.

Communities all over the city have been assigned a character to protect the neighbourhood.

The brilliant signs were the idea of Toronto artist/ puppet maker Andrew Lamb. He drew inspiration from pop culture of the 80’s and 90’s to bring new and awesome life to the faded Neighbourhood Watch signs around Toronto.

Here is a collection of the signs I have captured so far. I will update as I add to the collection, as I have seen many other ones that I didn’t get a chance to take a picture of. You can also check out this VICE interview with Lamb and see collections of the photos.

Neighbourhood Watch unicorn protecting Bloor and Delaware

Someone help me out- who is this? So familiar…

The Hulk- hopefully protecting

Samus from Metroid

Have you noticed these? Maybe captured a photo of one? Please share what you have found, or comment which is your favourite that you have seen!

I would love to hear which neighbourhood you would feel safest in!

Hopefully soon I’ll have pictures of them all!

 

Ansering the Streets of Toronto

Anser is one of my favourite street artists in Toronto. His work is incredibly niche- making it instantly recognizable. Anser creates beautiful faces out of seemingly simple lines.

Each and every face has a unique element that makes it stand out and differentiate from the others, like these piercing blue eyes and a beauty mark:

Anser Face in Kensginton

My most recent Anser find was near Avenue and St. Clair on a power box. The passing cars and night light made for some interesting shadows and depth on the simplistic, yet intricate fine lines that create the famous Anser Face:

Anser Face on a power box

It’s truly amazing how every face is so similar in its design, so similar you can instantly recognize it as Anser’s work and copy-cats or duplications are immediately obvious; yet every single Anser face I have ever seen looks different and unique.

Here’s another Anser face I spotted in Kensington recently:

Anser in Kensington

And, of course, you can’t escape a Love Bot appearance:

Anser + Love Bot

Faded Anser on College Street

Brown eyed Anser

There are so many unique Anser Faces in Toronto I have yet to photograph, so always be on the look out for new Anser Face posts.

Hopefully, some day soon, Toronto will be lucky enough to have another Anser Face gallery event, like this one a few years ago: Anser Gallery at Funktion Gallery or this major solo exhibit at #Hashtag Gallery the Crowded Kingdom

Underpass Park, Toronto

Underpass Park in Toronto, Canada is a public park space that made use of a underpass under the Don Valley Parkway. Usually areas like this site are barren, but the space was utilized beautifully to create a public park, skatepark, playground, basketball court and area filled with amazing art.

Underpass Park, Toronto

This old, forgotten and useless space was transformed into a usable, creative space. The park officially opened August 2nd 2012, by Mayor at the time, Rob Ford. The park is unique as it takes advantage of what once was useless space. Taking the underpass of a highway and turning it onto space where people can play basketball, skateboard and use the playground. Turning the columns into opportunities for artwork.

Underpass park before and after conceptualization, from Waterfront Toronto Website

The waterfront hosted its first ever artist competition to create an installation for the park. The winner was Paul Raff. Paul Raff Studios created an installation that utilized mirrors and reflectivity to open up the space.

Mirage by Paul Raff

Mirage by Paul Raff, photo courtesy of Paul Raff Studios.

Waterfront Toronto says of the installation: “Mirage, by Paul Raff Studios, uses reflectivity to draw people into and through the space. Mirage engages the public through the playful use of reflection by bouncing light around the space in an interesting and sculptural way.”

The columns of underpass park, as previously mentioned have allowed the opportunity for some incredible artwork. This street art that adorns underpass park is, of course, my favourite part. The walls are adorned with artwork done by the best of Toronto’s street artists.

Labrona Street Art

These columns feature art, by Canadian street artist Labrona. Check out his site for all his work. Many of the columns feature work by this Toronto artist, you can tell exactly which ones, as his depictions of people are very unique.

Labrona, Underpass Park

Labrona, Underpass Park

Underpass Park

Basketball and Street Art + Elicser

Elicser is well known for his work in Toronto, I have featured him many times on the blog, and always love his work. Like Labrona, his characters have a very unique look. Where Labrona’s are rigid and shapely, you can easily tell the difference with Elicser’s signature round faces.

Street Art Underpass Park + Spud

Spud has been an name synonymous with Toronto Street art for a long time. His work and bomb’s have been all over the city for many years, and although his identity is unknown to most, his work hit a high note of fame during Rob Ford’s reign with many now-infamous Rob Ford graffiti pieces.

Underpass Park Toronto

Underpass Black and White

Street Art Underpass Park

Fiya

Underpass Park + Fiya

This incredible face (directly above) was created by local artist Gilda Monreal aka Fiya Bruxa. In the picture above this one, you can see the other side in the background, the woman’s face further back. It is meant to represent the struggle of violence against women, which is an issue that is extremely important to me. Monreal was quoted for Post City Magazine about the piece:

“It’s really to address violence against women,” explains Monreal. “There are two sides of the pillar that Nick (Sweetman) and I worked on. One side shows the strengths, the dignity and the survivorship of women, and the other side represents the indignation and the rage at the fact that this kind of violence still occurs every day.

Check out this video to see the whole park (in the early unfinished stages), hear the upcoming visions and of course, if you can- come check out Underpass Park!

Graffiti Alley: Some Things Always Change

Graffiti Alley is one of my favourite spots in Toronto. When I first started writing Street Inspired, I visited Graffiti Alley and posted a series of beautiful murals, street art and graffiti.

Looking back at those pictures and visiting now, besides a few key, staple pieces, you could think it was an entirely different place. And that is what I love about street art and the essence of art in general. It is always changing, always moving, always developing. Even some pieces may remain, but be altered or added to. This is what makes street art so very special. Art is a reflection of life, or possibly life is a reflection of art. But life is never stagnant or unchanging. It always changes and so does street art.

Street art also has the ability to hold a mirror up to society and show what is going on and how people are feeling about it. During Rob Ford’s “high times” he was determined to eliminate every bit of street art possible. And during this time the streets were bombed and flooded with art pieces relating to the good ‘ol ex Mayor of Toronto.

As I went on a new venture to Graffiti Alley it was a bit of a rainy day, but after a nice Sunday Brunch the rain slowed to a trickle and stopped right upon entering the alley.

The rain has cleared

This next picture was one of my favourite pieces I saw the entire day:

Love me or Leave me alone

I love this for so many reasons. The mural shows a beautiful woman- wearing her heart quite clearly on her naked chest- Exposed for onlookers to take her as she is. As a women I go out, exposed to the world around me, and women are constantly judged, based on appearance, opinions or simply the fact that I am not interested in being hit on. This piece to me reflects that feeling of getting up, taking the time to look good and then dealing with a barrage of lovers or haters- or the haters who hate because you refuse to love them. Move along with your haterade! *damn, I got out of bed for this?*

Fency 😉

There’s never enough time to do the nothing you want

Sunny side up

I love subtle pieces, as you can see a collection I gathered in the past- and this piece definitely qualifies. In a wall full of bright colours, the egg was easy to miss- but this made it perfect to me.

Dead Man?

I love the way art can come together in unpredictable ways. Deadboy, a well known street artist who seems to be a little out of the scene lately, made his presence known here. It fits so perfectly with the ghoulish, mummy mural placed behind it.

Picasso Day Dreams

Bleeding Heart

Partner in crime for the day

One with the graffiti

After spending the day searching for the best pieces, which turned out to be a beautiful day, a little relaxing was needed. Graffiti hunting can be a tough job, but someones gotta do it, right? 😉

 

#stikman in the Streets

Recently quite a few stikman ‘s have shown up in the streets… Literally. They are on the road. So next time you cross the street, don’t look left and right- look down!

Bitches Love Art

I love when I see a certain artist, whether previous known to me or new to me start to crop up around the city. This technique always seems to garner attention. One day, suddenly you see a multitude of pieces around the city by one artist, as if they were all put up over night. This always manages to peak my curiosity, inspire me and make me pay attention!

Recently this has been happening with an artist signing off as MAF. I noticed my first MAF piece pop up near St. George Subway station. This is interesting for a few reasons. First off, as I mentioned before my new neighbourhood (very close to this subway station) isn’t exactly known to be a graffiti/ street art hotspot. In fact it’s probably one of the most devoid of graffiti areas in Toronto. So it definitely stood out. Secondly, I believed it could be put up as part of a Nuit Blanche as it was that same weekend. And I believe this was the case, even if it was not officially affiliated with Nuit Blanche, which I think it was probably not.

Bitches love art.

As you can probably guess the mentioning of art is what caused me to link this with Nuit Blanche (maybe also alluding to the amount of young kids taking advantage of the night to drink).

Anyways, as art does, it changed over time. Someone against profanity blacked out “bitches” leaving it as “love art”. Not as fun, but I suppose a more positive message.

So, a few days later I walked the scenic route to work. And nearing the corner of Avenue and Bloor, in the same area as the last one, another MAF (on the side of a church!)

Fashion is my rap.

Love it! I love it all MAF! Such a fan of written street art. I really hope to find more popping up, especially in the Yorkville- U of T area. It makes my day so much better!

Lastly, after finally going to the AMAZING, new Ripley’s Aquarium I found another MAF near the CN tower.

Puzzle Brain

I find this piece quite intriguing. Pay attention to the “head” of the piece:

Brain

What I wonder is, is this first word purposely unreadable, or like the first picture (Bitches love art) was it altered after the fact?

It is possible of course that it was altered. Or even possible that the word just blurred when being done.  However, what if this was done on purpose? It was written in the brain, therefore allowing people to decide on their own what they feel or want to say about art, or what they are willing to think or do for art?

Love me a good mystery and something that makes your brain work. If this is the point, well done MAF.

Now I leave you with this view:

Cn Tower. Started from the Bottom.

Robots, Zombies, Politics

I had a day off this week and I had no friends who were off to share it with! 😦 It was a beautiful day and I wondered “what am I going to do!” I ended up meeting a friend for his break and having lunch. After I  decided to walk the long way home and take some pictures. I’m passionate about graffiti and taking photos, but with my new neighbourhood’s lack of graffiti culture and working full time I feel I haven’t had the time or mind space to pursue either.

So I ventured around, walking the extra, super, long way home…and of course I found some interesting gems. I love my city! Have I said that before?

Anyways these are such a mis-mash of photos but that’s what makes them even more awesome side-by-side.

Love Robot

This awesome LOVEBOT wasn’t found by chance, this one I purposely looked for.

This is a Love Robot part of the Love Robot Invasion.

#Lovebot #loveinvasion for Twitter.

This is part of an art installment going up all around Toronto, masterminded by local artist Matthew Del Degan. As of now there are only a few of these adorable little bots up, two of which I have found. I plan to find and photograph them all and do an in-depth post of them, for now you get to see just a sneak peek.

We all have things in common

I mentioned in my last post, I have noticed a lot of interesting drawings popping up around Toronto. This is one of them. I’m not quite sure of the meaning but it reminds me of one of those diagrams that show how two different groups have things different and in common, with the overlapping circles. The patterns make me wonder and curious though.

Maybe these two different entities have more in common than they realize (notice they both have the circles, but each on opposite ends).

Any thoughts on this mysterious drawing??

Zombie Survival Camp

This does not qualify as street art and graffiti, but I am obsessed! Apparently this is a real thing! I wonder if the people who created it and attend it really believe a Zombie Apocalyse is coming, or participate for fun and exercise purposes, like a way cooler boot camp!

Rob Ford

I can’t get into all the Rob Ford drama, we all know it inside and out.

However, Rob Ford being elected caused a new trend and revolution in street art featuring many Rob Ford street art pieces. This piece is a cute drawing of a bird, which I quite enjoy, but trying to turn this into a political piece is a little beyond me. Thanks Finn for the political insight and great point, bird, great point.

Electric Box Decoration

The rest of the box was also pretty fun. A few people walked past and looked at me strange, wondering why I was hovering behind this electrical box. But there is also a devil drawn in the background which is a little hard to see, I think the quote “Not by the hair of my chinny chin chin” goes with it.

And another great point on this box, promoting art with the word “Art”. A lot of imagination, insight and education went into these drawings (clearly since it was found on U of T property) or maybe they just felt obligated to pretend they were standing for something.

Freedom

Okay, so this may look like a picture of a street sign, and although its super duper hard to see I swear there is a super nice quote about freedom on it!

It says “Freedom is the right to choose the bars of your own cage.”

Even with the darkness and the sun blocking your ability to see, half of the words were faded off, but it was pretty easy to put together and still worthy of a photo and posting.

Can’t wait for my next outing, and of course to find more Lovebots!

Draw Me

Recently I have noticed a new trend in Toronto Street art popping up all over the city. Drawings. I snapped a few photos of some weird drawings in the past, but it seems like they have taken over the city.

There seems to be an overall theme of shapes, and some of them are clearly done by the same person. I would love to know who made these and what the meanings are behind each of them.

I have gathered a small collection of the many awesome and super weird wheat paste drawings. I hope to get many more pictures as each one is so unique and interesting.

The Eye

Inside and Wings

Creepy Little Girls

Legs

Beliefs