A Guide to Manchester Street Art

Danielle Hulmes

This is one of the photos I took of the Manchester Street Art. This piece is a wheat paste poster, and it covering a lack graffiti tag. I think that this piece is trying to show that Street Art should be more accepted into the art world – as a beautiful and traditional piece such as this is not scruffy graffiti that it is surrounded by. This art is different, unique and holds a string message. I also think that this piece conveys an underlying message to show that women come in a variety of sizes, and can be beautiful whatever size they are.

I think that this piece has a heavy message – true love never dies. The elderly couple (as shown by the detailed line work, that includes shading and some wrinkles that they may have), look like they can’t even see whatever may be going on around them as their love blinds them from it. The purple, blue and beige in the background creates a heart and shading which makes it seem like the couple are in their own space and aren’t affected by the rot that may be around them.

This poster is one of my favourites as it references the Joy Division song ‘Love will tear us apart’. Originally, the poster was not meant to be ripped but I think that the tear in it makes it more symbolic. The man in the picture is on a chair, with a noose around his neck and a love heart attached to the top, this could mean that the love he feels is killing him. It is also more symbolic, as the lead singer of Joy Division who wrote this song, killed himself. Which is what the man is doing.

This piece is quite funny as the piece, by a street artist, takes a dig at other street artists. They do this by saying that if your work is rubbish, then you can just call yourself a street artist and you’ll get money and you don’t even have to be that good at street art.

This piece of street art uses a small range of colours, and shows a pug in a space suit. The colours of the galaxy are placed into the shading on the space suit and dog, to make the piece look more put together. This piece also features some geometric shapes. I think this gives the piece some depth.

This is a simple piece, created by the tile street artists from France, Space Invader. This is one of the many that he put up in Manchester. The piece features 4 different colours. The message that Space Invader is trying to get across with all his work, is that video games are taking over the world, and by putting these small video game characters up around the world, he is displaying his view more and more.

I like this piece of work a lot, as it is quite abstract. The eye that looks slightly alien, is surrounded by some leaves but also an array of different patterns to create a border. The artist used a black and white poster for this. I think they were trying to show that the weird and unusual is all around us, and we just have to look to notice it.

This piece is one of my favourites, as it displays a street artist creating nature instead of art. I think that the artist was trying to show people that street art can be beautiful, and many different people’s ideas of what beautiful is. I think that what he is also trying to show is that street art can also be meaningful instead of something stupid. He is doing this by choosing a tree as the tree could represent growth and life.

Gentrification means ‘the process of renovation and improving a house or district so that it conforms to middle-class taste’ it can also mean ‘the process of making a person or activity more refined or polite’. This sticker could mean many things. Firstly, it could mean that they’re trying to change a place where street art is accepted into what the general middle-class people want to see, which isn’t what the Northern Quarter is about. I think that it could also mean that society is trying to mold people to be more ‘refined’ and ‘polite’ instead of the unique individuals that they are, and make the youth cookie-cutter people that will achieve the same as everyone else in life. I believe that this sticker is trying to make a comment on the fact that people aren’t being unique and individual anymore, and that they should go for what the believe in and don’t meet what the society wants them to be.

This piece is not the general piece of street art that you may see but I believe that it is trying to convey a message, that you have to want to inspire others before you die so that your memory will live on. It is a very powerful message and could inspire everyone. I like the fact that it isn’t in the general street art style, and it is just the bare minimum that it could be, but says something so powerful and strong.