Manchester’s Northern Quarter is home to bars, cafés, restaurants, vinyl record shops, designers, artists and musicians. To some it may well be the very definition of hipster, a term that is used for the buzzing creative areas in any city that you visit these days. These are the areas of cities I like to seek out because they are really interesting and I can never resist a vinyl record store. Situated between the the two principal railway stations of Piccadilly and Victoria and north of Piccadilly Gardens it is an urban, gritty area that has grown enormously in popularity in recent years. As with such areas it has attracted street artists and the Cities of Hope festival, held in 2016, saw the production of some major works. Street art by its very nature is ephemeral, constantly changing and evolving, one of the very things that makes it interesting to search out. These are some of the pieces I came across in a short walk around the area, there are no doubt others that I just simply didn’t haver time to locate. The whole fun is to go out and explore.
Hydro has works all over the world and this piece on Brightwell Walk formed part of the Cities of Hope festival and depicts the impact of war on children lives. A blindfolded child holds an AK47 while a menacing, shadowy figure stands behind. It is a very striking image.
Alongside it on Brightwell Walk is a portrait by local artist Tankpetrol of the author Anthony Burgess who wrote the dystopian novel A Clockwork Orange. The inscription reads “We can destroy what we have written but we cannot unwrite it”
French artist C215 has a number of stencil portraits in the city. This piece on Tariff Street raises the issue of homelessness, a significant problem in the city, as elsewhere, currently.
He also has some stencilled images on shutters on the corner of Stevenson Square and Spear Street of which this is just one example.
Across the street is a huge work by the Swiss street art collective Nevercrew. It shows a large crystal with people falling off it from the bottom. It was done as part of Cities of Hope to raise awareness of immigration issues.
On Port Street you can find one of the oldest pieces in the city, by Sheffield artist Faunagraphic, that dates back to 2011. not surprisingly the paint is a little faded in places but it remains a striking image covering the whole side of the building.
Dale Grimshaw created this work to highlight the issue of the independence campaign for West Papua.
I am particular fan of the art that appears on hoardings around building sites and areas of land awaiting development. This is very much here today gone tomorrow in many cases and you have to catch it while you can. The area near the top end of Spear Street and adjacent streets contain some good examples.
One of the points in favour of large scale art works on the sides of buildings is that they are protected to a degree from the influence of others. I particularly like the work by Norwegian street artist Martin Watson on Faraday Street which is a stencil and freehand piece. The leaves on the tree are graffiti tags and it is a really interesting piece created to raise awareness of the environment. Sadly others have added their own tags to the piece.
Also on Faraday Street is this marvellous work by Zadok.
Across Great Ancoats Street and viewable as you cross the road, is this work on the side of Swan Building, in Cable Street by Case highlighting disability issues.
Finally two works that I somehow seem to have failed to note where they were located exactly. The first is on a doorway which may well be on Edge Street and is by Italian street artist Alice Pasquini.
