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After I read Rashima’s post last week featuring beautiful street art on the walls throughout India, I was reminded of a festival in my home town of Waterford that similarly promotes and celebrates street art.

Originating in 2015, the Waterford Walls street art festival is now an annual event that hosts world-class national and international street artists, invited to paint the city’s walls with stunning large-scale works of art.

I will share below some of my favourites from the 4 years of the festival, but I first wanted to highlight this piece. It holds a special significance for me as it’s painted on the side of the building that was my home for my teenage years. I even spent a summer in the early 90s painting the first floor exterior walls and windows (sadly with an un-artistic monochrome exterior emulsion) so I feel a certain amount of unearned fellowship with the artist, our work separated by a handful of years and couple of layers of paint 😛

Artwork by Sonny

The same building c. 1999. A few years and at least one coat of paint later than my original artistic handiwork.

But back to the festival, a highlight of which is that the public can watch as the artists bring their artworks to life, some pieces taking several days to finish. Naturally given the ephemeral nature of street art, their permanence cannot be guaranteed but social media can give them a longer life and a further reach. Scrolling through the stunning artworks produced at the festival and posted to Instagram from previous years, I have selected here a few of my favourites;

Artwork by Dan Kitchener

Artwork by Monkey Bird Crew

Artwork by Smug

Artwork by Joe Caslin

Artwork by Fintan Magee

If you’re interesting in seeing the artists in action, the Waterford Walls festival will be coming to a (Waterford) wall near you from 22nd – 25th August, 2019. Alternatively Waterford Walls offer Guided Art Trails all year round that take you on a two-hour walking tour of the city’s street art, showcasing some of the festival highlights from the past 4 years.

Caitriona Butler, Web Developer.
Caitriona can usually be found crafting robust and effective responsive websites across a range of programming languages & technologies at Neworld; a branding, creative and web design & development agency based in Dublin.