As I mentioned yesterday, over the weekend Jeff and I made the five hour drive up to Toronto. I was completely enamored almost instantly. Without a doubt, one of my favorite things about Toronto was how colorful it was. Tucked away in alleys along Queen Street West is this insanely colorful world of graffiti. It doesn’t matter what your opinions are on graffiti, I guarantee you’ll find something that just blows you away. The sheer skill needed to create some of these pieces left me speechless. I’ve literally never seen anything close to this in person before.
Back in March Jeff and I made in brief stop in Baltimore to have dinner with a friend since we were passing through. While wasting time we stumbled upon their graffiti alley (see my post here!) and I was super impressed. It was a legal spot where artist could paint! That’s really awesome but Toronto’s graffiti alley and that place are on totally different levels. The fact I thought that was soo awesome was almost laughable after visiting Toronto. There is so much to see here, and I’m gonna say it fifty more times in this post – the caliber of artistry in these pieces is insane. I guess you could say Toronto has an outdoor art museum. The piece below even has a stinken frame around it! How awesome is that!?
Perhaps the title of this post is a bit misleading, technically not all of these photos are from “graffiti alley”. Like I mentioned in my first post about Toronto we spent a lot of time walking around the city. Toronto is just this graffiti mecca. You can’t walk too far at all before stumbling upon something incredible. Nearly every alley we peeked down had something to see. More than half of my photos from this short trip were of pieces I admired. We didn’t get to explore very much of the city so I know there is SO much more to see. I wish Cleveland was even a fraction as colorful!
Until next time, Toronto!
xoxo
18 comments
This is beautiful. My eyes were darting everywhere whilst scrolling through your photos, I wouldn't know where to look if I was there in person! I just love how the variety of styles mesh together, to create something equally as amazing as the pieces are individually. I hope you had a great time in Toronto!
It's crazy to see in person. I bet we missed so much stuff even in the alleys we did go in just because it's so much to take in.
Graffiti alley is easily one of my favourite things about living in Toronto. It's constantly changing! Go back next time you visit and I bet you'll see loads of new things to admire. Most of the overpasses for highways/subway tracks have graffiti underneath along the sidewalks as well, huge projects currently underway to expand that.
I know, I can't wait to come back and see more!
i love streetart (my instagram feed is dominated by it :D)! this looks amazing… the colours are just awesome 🙂
Who are some of your favorites to follow on instagram?
I've never been, would love to visit! The color is magnificent.
Kim
Yeah, Toronto is definitely worth a visit! 😀
Glad you had a nice time in Toronto (my home town)! I love the graffiti alley along Queen St W too — it really brightens up the city especially now that the days are getting shorter. Have a nice day 🙂
PS: I'm hosting a giveaway on my blog, be sure to check it out:
http://www.mintnotion.com
It's such an awesome burst of color. Every city needs something like that!
This is wonderful! It's amazing to think about how far this form of art has gone. I live in Houston, Texas, so when we first started getting the graffiti art movement in our city it wasn't taken so kindly. Just last week though we had a mural festival lasting a whole week long and celebrating the graffiti artist that were working on their respective murals. The outcome is beautiful! I'll have to take some pictures of our graffiti here in Houston as well. 🙂
http://www.atablespoonoflife.com
That's so awesome! I hope someday Cleveland will embrace it.
Oh wow…. love the one with all of the fish!
ME TOO! It was the WHOLE side of that building. It was so awesome!!!
I love all of it! I want to go to Toronto someday! Up here in Anchorage, there isn't a lot of graffiti art, but there are some pretty neat murals downtown, particularly a large whale mural that was painted by Robert Wyland. There is a huge list on Wikipedia of all the whale murals that he has painted around the world.
I just googled his work and recognized it immediately, we have a MASSIVE mural by him in Cleveland as well. That's pretty crazy how many whale walls he's done.
Ahh bliss! So much color! Love it.
I love graffiti. I've been trying to find some good graffiti here in Russia, but none of it is very good.
Comments are closed.