IF YOU are walking along the canal at the back of the Róisín Dubh, or along Pump Lane, between the Róisín and the Bierhaus, you cannot fail to have seen the evolution of the Movember mural.
Set in a mountainous landscape, a man with glasses and a prominent moustache, dressed in warm coat and hat, stands underneath and beside signs which encourage people to register to get involved and to ‘Grow a tache for cash’.
Follow along the wall into Pump Lane and there emerge two wild looking mountainy men, with deerstalker hats, fierce eyes, and bristling facial hair. One of them is on the lookout for something, while his friend just smiles.
Then, emblazoned across the pinkish sky and jagged mountains is www.movember.com, the website of the charity which encourages men to grow a moustache as a way of raising awareness of prostrate cancer and funds for Action Prostate Cancer, an initiative of the Irish Cancer Society.
Away from that and towards the end of the wall at Pump Lane, the mural’s mountains turn into forests, within which lurks a grizzly bear with a ghetto blaster - no doubt trying to avoid the hillbillies.
Call it graffiti, call it street art, call it a mural, either way it’s a fun, eye catching, and skillful work from Galway street artist BAQSR.
Movember mural
BAQSR was asked by the Movember charity to do a mural - or product as street artists call them - to create awareness of and celebrate the event. The mural also has permission to be in that location given that it is part of the Movember charity events and activities in Galway city.
“When I was asked to do the product I was asked if it could have a rustic outdoor theme,” BAQSR tells me during our Tuesday afternoon interview. “Hence you have the guy with the ‘tache for Movember and he’s in his outdoor coat and then there are the two other guys who I call ‘my little dudes’ out mountaineering.”
BAQSR feels the mural - which is nearly complete - is already playing a role in creating awareness about Movember among all age groups and showing people that graffiti does not have to be about vandalism, but can instead be artistic and enhance the look of an area.
“This is a place where a lot of people walk so many have the chance to see it,” he says. “Youngsters see it and they like the characters and the colours and they find out what Movember is and when they get old enough they might take part in it to. They also hear about prostate cancer which is something they will need to become aware of as they get older.
“This is also a popular walkway to college so students see it and a lot of them take part in Movember as it’s trendy to do. They respond to the vibrancy of the work and it draws them in.
“What I’ve liked best though has been the responses from older people as I’ve been working on the mural,” he continues. “Many older people walk along the canal and they say ‘That’s wonderful!’ Many of them are retired and have a daily routine so the fact that the mural was changing and developing each day gave them something different to look at each time they passed, and they have really responded to it.”
Apart from the ‘outdoor/rustic’ theme, what sources of inspiration did BAQSR draw on for his mural?
“I love to doodle,” he says. “I doodle like mad and develop whatever ideas I come up with there into bigger pictures. I’ve also studied graphic design and I like when paintings fit into the environment. I’ve always been interested in typography, and design the importance of using letters to bring out different aspects of character. I think the letters I use in www.Movember.com reflect my personality - fun, happy.”
Arguing for street art
Most of what is seen on walls is tagging - the commonly seen letters scrawled on a wall or litter box. However the works which feature regularly on Pump Lane, and the street art created for the 2009 Volvo Ocean Race at the docks offers something else - works of colour, imagination, and vibrancy which take skill and talent to execute.
Both are graffiti but the difference in quality between the two is significant and determines people’s reactions to them. Tagging is, arguably, defacement of property, but works like the Movember mural draw, as has been seen above, praise and public acceptance.
“People need to be careful where they do products and they need to be respectful,” says BAQSR. However he feels that graffiti can play a positive role in the visual life of the city, if street artists are given spaces to work.
“If we have walls where we can work on we can offer something positive to Galway,” he says. He argues that walls which are drab or plain can often attract neglect, litter, and vandalism, but if given to street artists, can be transformed into walls sporting vibrant and fantastic images, letters, characters, and colours.
“Walls like that tend to be kept cleaner and it helps brighten up the area and gives people something good to look at.”
To demonstrate this, BAQSR is appealing to anyone who has walls, etc, that can be made available to street artists to get in touch.
“We could get collaborations going on and get Galway artsy again,” he says. “It would be good to get more spaces to create.”
An example of this is that a number of years ago the Galway City Council gave space in Fr Burke Park for street artists to work on and also allowed street artists to exhibit on the council grounds on College Road. BAQSR was involved in those events and says it was a very positive experience.
“It helped my development and I would like to see more of that for younger people so that they can have the opportunity to get involved and develop their style,” he says. “There are teens who do art but may not have an outlet for it, things like this would give them that.”
Yet street art is not a permanent art. A work can be created and within a few weeks the street artist will have no qualms about painting over it with something new.
“When you’re young you have your ego, but as you get older you get more perspective and realise that nothing lasts forever,” says BAQSR. “It’s recycling and also for street artists, it’s not just about the finished piece, it’s about the process. I do something every week, all week, whether it’s canvases, sketches, murals, designs.”
Find out more about Movember at www.movember.com
