manchester miscellany

Although I’ve already posted five collections of graffiti that I photographed back in June in Manchester, these were all in locations where large numbers of graffiti had been painted in a relatively small area, and there were other places where perhaps there was only a single graffito. Some of these were well worth recording too, especially the first image:

I can’t help but see this as a row of semi-reclining creatures, possibly human, although that probably wasn’t the artist’s intention. The figure third from the left reminds me of an amorphous snowman wearing a bobble hat, despite the colour. Unfortunately, this was another graffito that I couldn’t fit into a single shot.

I spotted the next work on its own a short distance before I reached the hoarding that I described in The Writing on the Fence. There is nothing exceptional about the writing style, although I do wonder why the black outlining on the letters adjoining the mask is broken. Malign influence? Although I can actually read what’s written, it’s meaningless to me.

I came across an undeveloped area west of Oxford Street that was surrounded by walls and fences bearing graffiti, but I didn’t consider most of these worth recording. However, the next three artworks were a resounding exception. The first appears to be completely abstract, but the more I look at it, I wonder if I’m seeing, or imagining, concrete images.

The object obscuring part of the image in the bottom left of the picture is a lightweight tent. I saw several in similar locations around the city, and I did wonder whether the occupant was a homeless Mancunian, or merely a backpacker looking for a cheap option.

Around the corner to the right from the previous image, there are two more artworks side by side:

It’s worth looking closely at each work in more detail. Both are mostly abstract, but there are faces that were obviously intentional. Of course, once you see faces in paintings like these, you see them where they weren’t intended. And both feature the glinting light motif, which I’ve commented on before:

The red face in the next image doesn’t appear to have been painted by the artist who is responsible for the blue faces that I’ve commented on previously, although they are similar. The central graffito is what I now describe as ‘routine’, but the right-hand tag is much more nuanced—and colourful!

Finally, I’ve included this image precisely because all the lines are crude. Yet despite this apparent limitation, the lettering stands out extremely well:

This is my sixth and final report on graffiti in Manchester. I didn’t go looking for any of it, but in simply wandering around the city, this is what I saw.

more graffiti from manchester
The Writing on the Fence
Lost Horizon
Some Consolation: Part 1
Some Consolation: Part 2
A Graffiti Mystery