Mural Painting


Mural painting has recently grown in popularity on the island and is commonly seen as a development of graffiti art, a type of street art that originated in the West in the 1950s and 1960s.
In fact, Malaysia was where realistically drawn murals initially gained popularity before spreading to Singapore. On my earlier visits to Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia, I saw people spray-painting graffiti on the walls of vast canals or overpasses; letterings and some simple drawings, including portraits, were accentuated with vibrant spray paint. The same acts, however, were hardly ever seen in Singapore at the time; maybe the authorities had not yet realized the appeal of graffiti art. Furthermore, unauthorized graffiti equated to vandalism, which was punishable.
Today, anyone walking down the street can appreciate the island's many wall murals; some have even evolved into landmarks to help people find their ways around. Murals, on the other hand, are more prone to weather damage than indoor artwork; if they are not maintained, they are harder to conserve, and new murals will inevitably replace them.
In actuality, permanence is an illusory concept. I was shocked to see that one of the trees to the left of the mural painting had been removed; this time, the mural is not the first to go.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The back alley

Image
While walking through Little India in search of breakfast, I find myself passing many back alleys. Some are only accessible by foot, while others are also accessible by car. We try to stay away from back alleys because they are often unpleasant due to junk build-up, unless when photographing old buildings in Little India; many of the buildings date back to the early 20th century and are regarded as island monuments. You can also see engravings of sacred animals, auspicious symbols, and verses on several of the double-storey houses that were once owned by the Peranakan. Recently, we noticed that Desker Road is right in front of the Indian cuisine café where we had our breakfast, an alley which, along with Geylang is infamous for being part of Singapore's red-light districts, and where customer solicitation once stretched throughout the entire back alleyways; I wonder if such acts still take place, considering that streetwalkers are rarely seen out and about these days. Years ago, I ...
Read more

The Rochor River

Image
When we were young, a trip to visit my grandma with my mother would excite us a lot. We'd say we were heading to Rochor or downtown. My grandma's house was along Beach Road, and to the east of it was the business district, while to the west, across the street, was the Rochor River, which crosses the Merdeka Bridge before merging with the Kallang and Singapore rivers and flowing into the sea. I have fond recollections of this stretch of the river near the Merdeka Bridge because my father's workplace was close to my grandma's house, he occasionally took us downstairs to the coffee shop for soft drinks and then to the river to play. Like the small fishing villages in neighboring countries are now, the Rochor river was a dusty and chaotic place fifty years ago; a chaotic yet relaxed place where many laborers gathered to make a living from the sea. The most startling aspect was how close the “primitive” toilets were to the river; urine and stools would drop from above and ru...
Read more