The Street Art of Dublin - Finding the Universe

Somebody needs to give me a week solely to explore the street art of Dublin, seriously. The city centre alone is more or less plastered with it. Wether it’s in your face, in your way, or sneakily hidden; wether it’s a tiny sticker on a traffic sign or a massive painting covering a whole wall; wether it’s beautiful, funny, political, philosophical, or absurd – it’s everywhere!

Another thing that I found special about the street art in Dublin is that you repeatedly find the works of the same artists. I hadn’t encountered that elsewhere before. It’s like being in a gigantic exhibition, where you wind up in front of a painting, light your pipe carefully, and then constate with effortless sophistication: “Ah, why! Is this not another fine example of so-and-so’s gentle strokes with the spray can, hum, hum. I can see he slightly changed style from his last opus in [insert street name] Street, which he did four months ago”.

Or like a treasure hunt, when you discover that there are different stickers of the same type all over the city, and you kind of get in a frenzy… “Gotta catch them all!!”.

I also found that quite a bit of the existing art is legal. The Dublin City Council will work together with (street) artists (who can contact the Arts Office for a collaboration or if they want to use property of the council) and initiate projects, like the Dublin City Beta Projects, which are about testing concepts in the city, right on the streets. They have some excellent stuff going on!

Last but not least, I found a lot of commissioned work as well. It’s not just the very funky or freaky shops that have graffitti on their walls and shutters; it’s all sorts of businesses. Looks great!