Lovebot - Quick & Quiet 2 - Streetart Show

One of my pet hobbies is photographing Toronto streetart and graffiti. As this stuff is usually tucked away in alleys, people seem to miss just how much of it brightens up the cold concrete of our city, so I like getting it out there in front of people's eyeballs. Through my adventures in alleyways, I've had the fortune to meet one of Toronto's most prolific artists: Lovebot.

He recently put on a very small show at this studio, and I had the chance to snap some photos of him in his element. Though there are a lot of Lovebot wheatpastes/posters cropping up in the city, and the occasional painted piece, the artist made his start with actual, physical Lovebot sculptures cast in concrete. What I loved most about this shoot was that it showcased that solid concrete heritage of the art with the big stack of concrete bags smack in the centre of the room.

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Elicser - Toronto Graffiti Artists

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The first in what I hope to be an ongoing series cataloguing graffiti artists in The City and my obsession with graffiti in general.

I know pretty much nothing about Toronto graffiti artist Elicser (or, on Instagram, @elicserelliott). However, his unique style was likely the first I ever picked out and started to recognize in my former aimless fascination with Toronto's graffiti. It was probably Elicser who spurned me to get off my ass as far as putting my camera where my mouth with this whole love of graffiti thing. And it was certainly Elicser who inspired me to actually figure out these artists' names so I could start truly cataloguing and appreciating the breadth of their work. 

I now feel like every new bike-powered, camera-totting graffiti safari through the alleys of Toronto is just an attempt to track down more Elicsers that happens to lead me to find a great deal more.

My first-ever Elicser, taken on a crappy Samsung phone.

My first-ever Elicser, taken on a crappy Samsung phone.

The following is not an exhaustive look at his work, but it should be enough to get you started and to get you noticing those unique, piercing eyes staring out at you from behind a passing snarl of colour.

I hope you like his stuff as much as I do. I'm sure to post a lot more of it.

The full Regent Park mural. Not sure how the site is going to bastardize it when you click...

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The Railway Gallery

For some time now I've been meaning to make a concerted effort to photograph more of the amazing graffiti and street art that shows up in Toronto. This weekend I finally did so, taking advantage of the warm and clear spring weather, as well as my newly rebuilt bike. I meant to ride down through the Don Valley trails, out along Queen East, and then come up through the city's core. However, I found so much quality graffiti within a relatively small area of the valley that I wound up spending the better part of three hours down there, just photographing.

What follows are photos from an area of abandoned track that I've dubbed the Railway Gallery. The name might sound a little grandiose were it not for the fact that there is, quite honestly, a gallery's worth of quality street art along this one section of track. Here's a taste of it, but the full breadth can be found in my Flickr Set.

Also, if you recognize the work of any artists, please use the contact form on this site to identify which works belong to which artists so that I can credit them properly. Further, if you have tips for places with amazing graffiti, let me know so I can document that as well.

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