Cool beans, Life + Love

Exploring Street Murals in the Mt Pleasant Neighbourhood

mural of a couple on an apartment wall
Wasn’t it just a couple of weeks ago that we hit Strathcona to check out some street murals? Yes. Yes, it was. But there are just so many murals that have been created these past 5 years. We ventured back to  the Mt. Pleasant area, otherwise known as the epicentre of the Vancouver Mural Festival.

There has been an absolute explosion of murals along the Main Street corridor, starting from 2nd avenue and going up to 18th avenue, extending west almost to Cambie Street and east towards Prince Edward Avenue. If one was so inclined, I imagine it could be done in one day, but for us we were not as ambitious.

And let’s not forget the murals in Downtown, Gastown, Marpole, Robson, South Granville, West End, and River District too. We haven’t even begun checking out the murals in those neighbourhoods yet.

Here are some colourful, eye-catching pieces we saw today in Mt. Pleasant:

mural of flowers in front of an apartment building
No Rain, No Flowers by Jamie Smith, Tara Lee Bennett, and Crissy Arseneau, located at 127 E. 8th Avenue

mural of colourful circles on a building wall
mural of queen elizabeth and prince philip
While She Loathed Common Bubble, for the Sake of Contemporary Art, Liz Would Try to Look Past it by Danielle Krysa, located at 2301 Main Street (in the parking lot on 7th Avenue)

mural of a girl holding a heart puzzle piece
The Missing Piece by iHeart, located at 5 East 8th Avenue

sticker of a girl painted blue
Even thought this sticker was clustered by other murals, I don’t think it was part of the mural fest? However, I really dig on this Ensemble Reel piece because it reminds me of the El Bocho murals in Hamburg. Sidebar: I want to go back to Hamburg!

This one was interesting because with the naked eye, one might bypass it as it might not be that attention grabbing. But when viewed through your phone’s camera, it really pops out at you. It reminded me of those magic eye puzzles that were all the rage in the 90s.

colourful mural of a man's eyes
Entwined by Linsey Levendall, located at 33 W. 8th Avenue

But I think the most “wow” piece we came across was this one, because of the amount of space it took up on the side of an apartment building. Not to mention that it’s elevated, so you have to look up in order to see this large scale mural. And we were just on one side of the street. If you have go the other side of the street to view the mural, you’d be able to see her legs down the side of the building.

mural of a reclining couple on a side of a building
The Evening by Fintan Magee, located at E. 11th and Kingsway

Our jaunt around 6th to 8th Avenues took almost a couple of hours already. We like to take our time appreciating the murals.

View more photos of our Mt. Pleasant Mural Fest walk on my Flickr album. For a map on where all the murals are located, check out the Van Mural website or download the VMF app.

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