Travel

Shoreditch Street Art: London with a Bit of Edge

Renegade graffiti in what was once a working class neighborhood has morphed into modern art

I’ve always loved street art and I try to seek it out when I travel. To me, the wild colors, and the huge scale of some of the pieces feels so vibrant and fresh and captures something completely different than a classical painting. This type of art breathes with an awareness of the moment, a message about what is happening in the world right now.

Last weekend, my husband and I had one day in London with some local friends at the end of our summer trip through Sweden. We plotted out our day over breakfast — a walking tour of some of the major attractions. At the end of the list of options, our host mentioned a neighborhood with “a lot of really cool graffiti.” Of course, we had to go!

After ambling through the Borough Market, (a bit of street art in itself with its colorful signs, soaring glass ceiling and stands of foods from all over the world), we hopped onto one of the famous red “hop-on-hop-off” buses and made our way over to the Shoreditch district, known for its street art.

Once a working-class neighborhood, London’s Shoreditch area now screams “hip.” It has morphed into a hub of creativity. Walking down the street, I was tempted by the smells of Indian curry from the many restaurants we passed. The scrumptious summer-time scent of freshly-baked waffle cones also wafted from the ice cream shop.

Of course, even the sign for the ice cream shop had been painted like street art!

We turned down a little alley and found every inch of wall to be covered with art.

While I really liked the pink-haired girl with the robot in the center, I couldn’t help but also be drawn to the tattooed woman in the Snow White costume deciding whether or not to take a bite of the apple.

I’d been missing my kitties while we were traveling, so this mural of a kitty that looked like my Uma made me smile.

I loved the juxtaposition of the glowing face and the owl flying straight out of this piece of art. What message was this artist trying to convey? Was the owl a spirit animal?

I’ve been a David Bowie fan since I was a teenager. I just about busted out in song when I saw this “Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars” piece.

All over London, you might stumble across remnants of bombed-out buildings. In some areas, they have become places of humble silence. Here, this old wall has been brought back to life again with color.

I’m told that even the famous street artist, Banksy, whose real identity is unknown, has touched paint to the walls in this area. But most of the art here has been created by locals. And a lot of it is only meant to be temporary and has been painted over again and again until complex tapestries of imaginative expressions have been woven onto the bricks.

We thoroughly enjoyed our stroll through the Shoreditch district and I highly recommend that you check it out when you are next in London.

Thank you to the editors at Globetrotters (JoAnn Ryan, Anne Bonfert, Jillian Amatt — Artistic Voyages, Adrienne Beaumont, Michele Maize) for this month’s challenge on “Street Art:”

I have enjoyed reading some of the other street art pieces this month by Adrienne Beaumont:

and Erie Astin:

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Photos and story ©Erika Burkhalter. All rights reserved.