Skip to main content

visual art

Winnipeg has undergone a public-art makeover, Jessica Botelho-Urbanski writes, gaining the city international interest while beautifying the streets with everything from snowy owls to wayward Waldos

Winnipeg artists have teamed up to beautify inner-city neighbourhoods with new murals as part of the Wall-to-Wall festival.

JESSICA BOTELHO-URBANSKI
Winnipeg
Special to The Globe and Mail

This article was published more than 6 years ago. Some information may no longer be current.

As artistry spills from insulated studios to the city streets, the Manitoba capital is getting a fall makeover.

"Winnipeg, I think, holds its own on the world stage," says Bob Buchanan, a Halifax expat who's become enamoured of the local mural scene. He and his wife, Louise, have documented more than 600 pieces of street art on their website, themuralsofwinnipeg.com.

Local and visiting artists are producing 13 Synonym murals this month in Winnipeg.

Their new favourites include works commissioned by Synonym Art Consultation, the brainchild of millennials Chloe Chafe and Andrew Eastman. The pair worked together at a bistro and bonded over wanting to bring art beyond gallery walls. Five years, 180 events and 20 murals later, they're now curating the fourth annual Wall-to-Wall Mural and Culture Festival, helping catapult the public-art scene to international attention.

Local and visiting artists are producing 13 Synonym murals this month in Winnipeg, beautifying swaths of West Broadway, the North End, the Exchange District and the Forks. Their eclectic ideas include a revamped Manitoba flag and poetry by author Katherena Vermette.

Winnipeg artist Kal Barteski is painting 11 Arctic animals on garage doors in her Wolseley back lane.

Barteski is also planning to paint a life-size whale on the pavement itself.

Kal Barteski painted these elk on garage doors in her Wolseley back lane.

This owl is one of 11 Arctic animals painted by Kal Barteski.

Puppy love by Gabrielle Funk and Takashi Iwasaki was painted on grocery store in the West End neighbourhood.

Gaia shows an older woman with a hummingbird by Nereo II on a sushi restaurant in the West End.

Meanwhile, Winnipeg artist Kal Barteski is painting 11 Arctic animals on garage doors in her Wolseley back lane. She took neighbours' requests and is sketching polar bears, wolves, a narwhal, a snowy owl and a pod of belugas on their properties. Up next: a life-size whale on the pavement itself.

Mending by Bruno Smoky and Shalak Attack is a portrait of an indigenous women mending a heart. It is located on North Main Street in the North End.

Winnipeg Waldo, a much tinier tagger, is keeping busy spurring a citywide scavenger hunt via Instagram. He pastes doodles of the British cartoon on buildings, bridges and cassette tapes placed in thrift shops.

Winnipeg Waldo pastes doodles of the cartoon character around the city.

"For a city that kind of claims it's an art-centred community, for a long time it was hard to tell when you walked down the streets. Everything was just grey and boring," Winnipeg Waldo says. "I personally have seen in the last year things really start to change."