When I was just seventeen and on my way to the academy via Greyhound, I saw lots of elaborate graffiti for the first time, as the bus went through Houston. I was horrified. Over the years traveling the world and living in many cities I learned to see graffiti as an art form. The graffiti in Cuenca delighted me even more than the graffiti in Paris.
I was taking a photo of the building, then noticed the graffiti behind the police officer. It wasn’t until I was looking over the day’s photos that I noticed the black cat. (The Cuenca police wear camo.)
The below gallery is a set of photos of a single electrical pole, with individual bits of graffiti in the squares. These were mostly decoupage and stenciled.
The graffiti mural on the wall of a school, was defaced by random unartistic graffiti. It looks like the henna artist were getting into graffiti as well.I am not quite sure if this mural really should be included with the rest of these, since it is an advertisement for the Havana Blue restaurant and bar.
At first look the walls of this stairway below look to have graffitti, but these are tiled mosaics.
These are the stairs closest to my condo.
I just now noticed the palmtrees. I guess I lived in Hawaii for too long.
The stairs had a great view of the Andes.
At the top of the stairs was actual graffitti. This one would later be painted out and replaced with a new one.This mural is on the side of a building that covered most of the sidewalk. It made me wonder, what was there first; the sidewalk or the building. I saw this situation all over the older parts of Cuenca. Perhaps a tribute to one of the omnipresent street dogs?Elections were coming soon. There are quite a few photos of this street’s graffiti. I found it endlessly fascinating. This one was on a wall near the river. There was a really ugly mural here, which I didn’t bother to photograph. One day I saw the police supervising some young men painting the wall blue. Soon these works of art where here. I liked them so much that I used my jigsaw puzzle app (Jigsaw Puzzle Collection HD), to make it into a puzzleAnother wall along the river walk.The signs, which were supposed to give credit to the company that donated the park, were prime targets for graffitti. I noticed this one on Halloween.On another day, I found myself on the street with so many murals. The Artist seem to like to honor the medium a lot.Some look more humorous that profound. A nod to GauguinSocial commentary?An interesting take on the devil.There was rarely any traffic on that street, so I stepped into the street to put the devil into context. I had thought that the white puzzle piece was a signature. On this one it looks as if a rival has used it to deface the art.This is the one that made me think it was a signature, but again, maybe it was just a bit of vandalism. It wasn’t long after this wall was painted out that this work showed up.I liked the way that the beam of light crossed the building window. This one faced the one above, at the top of the steps going down to the river, near my condo.I saw this one the first few days I was in town, but hadn’t had the idea of doing a post of all the graffiti. I was glad to find it again so that I could photograph it. Walking by one day, I realized that on Halloween I had missed photographing all of this one.Above the mosaics on the stairs; angel mouse and happy worm.I love the big-eyed mosquito in the lower right.Taking advantage of the rocks to make a big impact. Graffiti defaced by poster. Poster defaced by graffiti. The cycle continues.Not graffiti, but an interesting note to end on.
A very interesting selection of graffiti art. Brings back memories of our time together in kakaako. Finally made to the Village Bottle Shop & Tasting Room for their pot pie. It was ono🖖
A very interesting selection of graffiti art. Brings back memories of our time together in kakaako. Finally made to the Village Bottle Shop & Tasting Room for their pot pie. It was ono🖖
We will have to go there when I come home.