February 19, 2016
San Juan seems to have hundreds of wall artists. There is wall art practically everywhere, and new works appear, replacing old, keeping the observer alert. I don’t know if the works are commissioned (I suspect some of the grander works are) or impromptu, but the art shows a wide variety of approaches, from folk art-like vignettes to religious symbolism to whimsical. I try to capture images of them as I see them, but there is no way my informal record captures even a fraction of the art.
Wall art, Avenida Ponce de Leon, December 2015.
Here are some of my recent spottings. I’ll show a small mage first, and then an edited version, cropped, retouched as necessary, and sometimes with levels and color balances adjusted.
The first is on plywood protecting a construction site on Avenida Ponce de Leon, about two blocks from our apartment.
The edited image, below, better captures the beach chair adorned with the Puerto Rican flag, waiting for use.
Second work form same construction site.
The second work is from the same construction site. The edited version, I think, better captures the moon-like imagery.
Image from Puerta de Tierra section of San Juan, January 2016.
The next three are also close to our apartment, on a side street that parallels Avenida Ponce de Leon into and out of Old San Juan. The first is rather whimsical.
Second work on same street as image just above.
The second shows a more bucolic scene, perhaps harking back to easier times. The edited image shows the effect of altered color balances, hue, and vibrance, as compared to the original.
Third image from Puerta de Tierra neighborhood,
The third from this neighbor hood shows a city scene with a simian-like creature guarding (or threatening?) the pedestrians moving along a busy street.
Art from the Santurce area of San Juan.
The final image. for this post anyway, is from Santurce, on a side street leading to the Plazita de Marcado. It is unusual in that the dominant color is red, but the plant imagery seems quite common.
This iguanoid creature adorns a wall in Santurce, adjacent to an entrance ramp to a highway heading south, to Caguas and Ponce. Here is the retouched version, still a work in progress. All the examples in this letter are from Santurce, a large area of metropolitan San Juan with both gritty and well-to-do neighborhoods.
