Mt. Pleasant Murals

We walked 11 km in Vancouver, finding these massive colourful murals in nooks & crannies throughout the city. What is the story behind them? Download your map before you go...

By Faith Xlvii (South Africa), titled The Natural Law. The mural is a connection to nature and animals as archetypal beings representing our own inner struggles and aspirations.

Christoph and Florin Schmidt, aka the Low Bros, address current topics by blending the past, present, and future with their angular style. The central theme to this mural is self-exposure and communication in the digital age.

The mermaids appear in progressive stages from resting to sitting, to rising, to the more adventurous action of swimming off to explore. Through the progression of colour scheme, shallow to deep water, and the actions of the mermaids, there’s a theme of transformation, as well as an awareness for the ocean and our Pacific West Coast.

By Carrielynn Victor, titled Scolder Dives For Berries. A Stellar’s jay dives into a patch of wild strawberries to snatch up a couple of berries for her chicks.

The artists say, “These characters belong to a region called Oaxaca located in Southwestern Mexico. This state is best known for its indigenous people and culture. The mural is portraying the importance that celebrations with music, dance and costumes, hold in the community.”

By Medianeras (Argentina). Titled: Freedom

Pic 2: The mural depicts the artist’s studio space and the piece heavily references Matisse’s “The Red Studio”. An homage to Mount Pleasant studio spaces.

By Oneq (Japan) Titled: Monster Sisters. In this mural it mixes old Japanese comics and American comics' pop styles.

By Olivia de Liberto, titled: Cosmic Breeze.

By Abbey Pierson, titled Entangled Flow. The artist writes: If we stop and look at our pasts, we will see the entanglement like knotted twisted roots. Perhaps when we then look forward, we will become a connected flow in which we find our ties to all that is around us. Allowing us to heal what has been damaged and create a flourishing future for life on Earth.

The artist wants to use art to solve social problems and environmental issues and to do so with humour.

This piece draws on symbols from skateboard culture and blends them with colour and pop-art from the 80’s and 90’s. On that blue door to the left it said; "Hell". It looks to me like this mural portrays struggles with addictions.

By Jamie Smith, Tara Bennett & Crissy Arseneau. The title means: Just like all great things in life, you don't get the reward without the work.

By D Ullock & D Nhung, titled Luxurious Dreamscape Bubble Bath. The artists wanted to combine two distinct painting pratices into one cohesive piece. Abstraction and academia result in a playful composition.

By Gabriel Martins, titled Arctic Projections. This mural sybolizes consumerism-driven climate change as a direct correlation to wildlife facing extinction. The animals are exploding both figuratively and perhaps literally. This way of drawing the animals is called exploed isometric projection.

By M Nguyen, titled Monster in Hiding. This mural acknowledges the power dynamic that exists between the surveyor and surveyed by inverting it, allowing the painting subjects to take the role of spectator.

By Kyle Scott (local). This mural is a collage of homes in his neighbourhood that embodies the character of an east side community.

By iHeart, titled The Missing Piece.

By DEF3 (Regina). Painted by a hip-hop artist.

By Alexia Tryfon from Cypress, titled Argos. This mural is actually inspired by Greek mythology and is based on the story The Odyssey by Homer.

By Linsey Levendall (South Africa), titled Entwined. This was his very first mural. He says as he was painting it he thought of how caught up we get, forgetting to pause and process the world around us.

By Bunnie Reiss (USA), titled Magic Music Ride. This mural was inspired by the history of the place and climate of Vancouver.

By Eva Eskelinen titled Where the Winters Are. The white wolf is a wanderer like many of us, experiencing the changes in our environment. There is a small solice in the escapism, but sometimes it distracts us from seeing what if right in front of us.

By Alex Joucov (local), titled Flame Town. This is a piece that attempts to depict a dark and alarming scene using an unexpectly bright and cheery visual language in order to display the balance of good & evil, happy & sad.

Title: Raven Transformation.

By Kathy Ager, title: Home Coming.

By Sonny Green (Australia), titled: Rainbow Serpent. The central circular figure of the piece is a traditional Australian Aboriginal symbol signifying a meeting ground. The serpent is Garriya who is a central creator spirit in Aboriginal Dreaming. This artwork is about communites coming together from distant lands for a common interest.

By Jill Stanton (Alberta), titled Blue Vines. The artisit hopes this mural mimics the feeling one gets when standing in a vast forest or other green spaces -- the calm, beauty -- but also the power.

By Fintan Magee (Australia), titled The Evening.

By Sara Khan, titled Recycled. This mural is about the repulsive and beautiful found in ordinary spaces and situations, and questions the normalcy of the seemingly mundane matters in life.

By Jean Langlois (Vancouver Island), titled The Tramplers.

By Tyler Toews, titled the Kraken. This mural is about our relationship and impact on the natural world. Humankind in this painting, represented by the conquistadors ship is both tied to the cause and effect of complex global problems like pollution in our oceans. Being in the bottle we are caught in a trap of our own making.

By Loretta Lizzie (Australia), titled Ella in the Fall. The store by this mural sells all of the figures, idols, candles and other worship related items about the Virgin Mary. Notice the halo around this woman.

By BKFoxx (Vancouver), titled Families are Meant to be Together. She was coming to Vancouver from France where she'd been painting and staying with family during Trump's crack down on the border and separation of families. The combination of her close experiences with family and the urgent need for political advocacy inspired this mural. This boy is actually one of her family members.

Paisley is Coast-Salish First Nations.

By Drew Young & Jay Senetchiko, titled The Present is a Gift. A portrait of Mr. Bob Butler who's worked at the Mt. Pleasant optometrey centre since 1950. The title is a play on words to bring awareness to the present moment, to live in the now.

We drove to this older area since it was more on the outskirts, close to Science World.

By Tim Mack, titled The Mad Symphony. This mural depicts an orchestra and was part of VMF first ever festival in 2016.

By Nevercrew (Switzerland), titled Exhausting Machine. This mural highlights the issue of exploitation of natural resources in connection to pollution and climate warming.

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