Street Art, Cuenca Style

I find that public art, authorized or not, says a lot about a place; what's important, what's controversial, what's taboo, the whole lot. The very first thing we noticed when we came to visit Cuenca in May of 2013 was the tagging. There wasn't a lot and what we saw were mostly messages of hope and love. Sure there were a couple f#*^ the police, but for the most part it was so and so loves whosey-what, make love not war and the like. It was kind of nice, since you can't eradicate tagging all together. Murals are very popular on the walls of schools, as shown in the next few pictures:

Once we came back the second time for a longer stay, we noticed the tagging had increased, but that street art (or graffiti if that appeals to you more) was blossoming. There's been a government promoted project to beautify empty wall around the city and the results can be stunning.

We're very excited about a project in the works to paint one of the under passes, that's having a broad range of styles of street art painted as I type this.(Shown in pictures above - post completion). The artists had set up a whole stage with huge speakers in the middle of the street which had been blocked off and were blasting South American Rap music while the prepped and painted. It was pretty cool, but I'll have photos about that later. So here's all the wild wacky and creative art we've come across in our wandering.



I think about the murals of whales in Vancouver, the fake brick wall tenement in Quebec City and for the life of me, I can't remember any street art in Prince Edward Island...tagging, sure, but huge works of graffiti, it escapes me. I'm sure someone will educate me!

Back of a bus stop

We hope you enjoy the enthusiasm, talent and whimsy of the Ecuadorian artists.

One of my favourites!

One more note about art (good or otherwise), my next book is almost complete (at least the first draft), so I'll hopefully have it available for summer reading. (Fingers crossed!)

 

One more photo just for fun, in the vein of Human's of New York (look it up, if you've never seen the site!) Today in Microfashion:

Domenica, our resident Chola Cuencana

The pose just kills it!