Darragh's Soapbox: Public reaction to Waterford Walls
Lukas Dwan
Waterford Walls has once again brought a new lick of paint to the city in the form of powerful and highly intricate murals and street art.
This is the 10th year of the annual street art festival and over 40 renowned artists from around the world came to the city to contribute. We asked locals this week how they feel about the recent mural additions to the city.
said: “I think they’re great. We live close to the tiger mural and it's brilliant. It’s great to see crowds coming around to take pictures and take an interest. There's parts of the town where not many new people would come, but a lot of people will now because of the new walls. It brings out the city and they’re certainly better than dirty walls.”
We caught up with artist as he was painting a new piece on Stephen Street. Lukas has been working with Waterford Walls for five years and has contributed a number of pieces around the city.
He said: ”It brings joy, pride and positivity to people who are walking by. People stop by and give you food, invite their family over, and people who live here are so happy to have new art outside their houses. For us artists we make new friends, meet new faces and get new opportunities."
A standout feature of this year’s festival was the new mural of athlete Rhasidat Adeleke on Jenkin’s Lane.
The piece has made considerable impact, both for its photorealistic detail, and for its depiction of an Irish sporting hero who grasped the country during her recent Olympic games heroics.
said to the Waterford News & Star: “She's inspiring a lot of people to want to do athletics and now she can inspire others whenever they walk past the wall."
added: “We’ve never been down this lane before, but today we actually came looking for it because we wanted to see the art. It’s beautiful.”
