Montreal Graffiti Street Art and Murals Around the City

Montreal graffiti and street art is easy to find while walking around the city. I love street art finds while strolling around a city like Montreal – murals and graffiti are plentiful.

My third solo trip to Montreal began with a welcome coolness in the air. August in Austin TX brings hot dry weather and the opportunity to walk around outside during the day or night and be comfortable was a welcome change.

I love the city of Montreal due to its vibrancy and the people and in part due to the marvelous amount of public art and street art/graffiti around the city.

Someone recently told me “don’t bother with St Catherine Street in Montreal, not worth seeing” and my response was “are you kidding me?! the street art is fantastic”.

 

 

Besides I was staying at The Hyatt Regency on Jeanne-Mance Street and my room overlooked St Catherine Street so how could I, and why would I ignore a walkabout in the neighborhood?

 

 

 

Montreal graffiti festival

It turns out that Under Pressure – International Graffiti Convention took place just a week prior to my visit to Montreal. It would have been interesting to watch some of the activities.

According to their website ” Under Pressure is a graffiti festival which focuses on community development, artist empowerment as well as positive youth development through ownership and responsibility of a shared space.” Sounds good to me!

You can find out more about Under Pressure International Graffiti Convention on their FB page.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All of the above street art is from my walk along St Catherine Street. Now let’s look at more graffiti and street art from around Montreal.

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Montreal has an active street art community and has been host to the Under Pressure Graffiti Festival for the past 23 years. You will also find murals around Montreal neighborhoods at any time of year.

 

Montreal graffiti and street art on St Denis

 

 

St Denis Street has many restaurants, boutiques, and galleries plus it is close to Montreal Central Hostel where I have stayed several time during my visits to Montreal so I have walked along St Denis numerous times. I noticed the street art before but this time I made a point of observing and photographing it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bad News Brown tribute mural in Montreal

This last work of art created by an artist-run production company called A’Shop is a tribute to the musician known as Bad News Brown or BNB. His name was Paul Frappier – originally from Haiti and lived in Montreal from a young age.

As a musician he opened for acts such as Snoop Dogg and Kanye West and his career was taking off big when he was murdered  in February 2011 at the age of 33. I am so sad for his family and friends – and the music community of Montreal.

 

 

 

I had never heard of Bad News Brown nor heard his music until I looked up the info after seeing the mural on a walkabout in Montreal. Give a listen to this instrumental – BNB performing his tune Reign – the man played some fantastic harmonica. Yes, harmonica in R&B and rap – never would have guessed!

 

 

You can see the tribute mural to BNB on Clark Street just north of St Catherine.

 

Live life to the fullest people – we never know when our time is up!

 

Click here for more graffiti from my travels around the globe.