As I’ve written before, the street art in San Juan is fanciful, colorful, and ever-changing. I’ll be showing some new works. They may be newly created, or maybe they are just new to me. These images are minimally edited – I’ve cropped them and adjusted the levels. That’s all. I’ll show you an example or two of fully edited images at the end of the post.
The Puerto Rican Flag
Some of the works use the Puerto Rico flag, sometimes optimistically, sometimes not. Here are a few examples.
The second and third stories of a building on Calle Cerra, in the Santurce neighborhood of San Juan.
A face in the flag. Happy? Sad? Ironic? You tell me. This is on a wall in Old San Juan.
RIP flag, and also Puerto Rico? This is on a wall in Old San Juan.
An exhortation asking police to unite, found on a wall in Old San Juan.
The flag adorning the front of a building. This is in the La Perla section of Old San Juan.
The flag used as a child’s cape. This is on a wall in Old San Juan.
The flag in vegetation. This is on a wall in the Puerta de Tierra section of San Juan. The wall will likely be torn down soon.
Sports
A relatively few examples of street art show sports figures. Here are a few.
A catcher in the colors of the Puerto Rico national team. He is on a wall in Santurce, on Avenida Ponce de Leon.Also in Santurce, and next to the catcher, this fielder is in the uniform of the Puerto Rico national baseball team.A somehat more abstract representation of a sports figure, this time from a wall on a gym in Condado.Another image from the wall in Condado.
Animals
Street art frequently employs representations of animals, sometimes realistic, sometimes more fanciful. Here are a few examples.
A bird of prey watches over an empty lot along Calle Cerra, in Santurce. It covers a two story building.A rabbit on a wall along Calle Cerra, in Santurce.A goat, again along Calle Cerra in Santurce.
An ape along Calle Cerra in Santurce. The helpful sign translates as “Caution Slips.”
Faces
Next I’ll show some examples of street art featuring faces – some beautiful, some ironic, all interesting.
What is her expression trying to convey? She is on a wall on Calle San Miguel, just off Calle Loiza in Santurce.She is also on Calle San Miguel, in Santurce.Her three eyes seem focused on the candle. This is also along Calle San Miguel in Santurce.This is from a side street off of Avenida Ponce de Leon in Santurce. If you look closely you will find various puzzles on his face, including word searches, Those are, you recall, square grids of seemingly random letters in which you have to find words like despot, scalawag, idiot, trump.A colorful face found along Calle Cerra in Santurce.This is on a wall in Santurce, on a side street off of Avenida Ponce de Leon. The level of detail convinces me this started as a photograph. I don’t know how the image was transferred to the wall.Perhaps she is being taught to paint. This is on the side of a two story building along Calle Cerra in Santurce.This is on a wall along Avenida Fernando Juncos in Santurce.
Miscellaneous
There are always things that are difficult to categorize. Here are two examples.
This is on a side street off of Calle Loiza, in Santurce.
Yeah, man, everything is cool. He is along Calle Cerra in Santurce.
Edits
I mentioned in the beginning that these were minimally edited. I’ve been working on converting some examples of wall art to black and white. I’ll show two before and after examples.
This was along Calle San Muguel in Santurce.My black and white version of the wall art immediately above.This is on the bridge pier that carries the highway that separates Condado from Santurce. The artwork has been there for some years. This is the only example of non-recent work in the post.Here us my edited version of the image immediately above. I think this would make a great notecard.
Final Thoughts
So there is some of the street art I’ve encountered in the past two months or so. There’s a whole lot more – stay tuned.
Notes and Sources
I took and edited all of these images. I use a small digital point and shoot camera and edit with Adobe Lightroom and/or Photoshop.
