When I had resigned from my job and moved to the North East, one of the things I had expected to be able to do is to blog more frequently and regularly, among other things. However, if you have been following my blog for a while you would have already noticed that things, at least the blogging bit, have not been going the way I had expected it to be. I haven’t been able to blog regularly even though I have tried to. I have wanted to share so many stories over the past couple of months, actually more than that, but haven’t been able to.

Penang Street Art

So, let me try to regain my momentum with this photo-post about the beautiful street-art of George Town, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Penang, Malaysia.

The first thing that surprised me about Penang, the most tourist visited destination in Malaysia, was the grace with which it has managed to embrace modernity while keeping its old-world charm side by side. Tall skyscrapers and glitzy hotels look face to face with classic Chinese and Malay houses. And somehow, they seem to be perfectly in sync and seem to complement each other, adding to the overall charm of the island that is Penang. Okay, I know that I can never get bored talking about the beauty and charm of Penang, after all it is one of my most favorite places but this post is about the street-art of George Town, Penang so I better talk about the same.

Street Art In George Town, Malaysia

If there would have been a list of the things in George Town you are sure to fall in love with, the murals on the walls of what is known as the UNESCO World Heritage Site buffer zone are for sure would have sat at the top of that list. The murals are spread across the buffer zone. Each of them is a fascinating piece of work, almost all of them are funny and are open to the viewer’s interpretation.

Each mural is better than the other and the best way to see them all is to either walk around the lanes of the buffer zone or take a trishaw ride, we did the later on our first evening there and then the next day, took a stroll ourselves. The good thing about taking a trishaw ride is that, you are sure to stop by each of the murals and your trishaw driver is sure to give you a brief about each of them. For this alone I would say, the RM 25 hour-long trishaw ride is totally worth it.

Wall art by Lithuanian artist Ernest Zacharevic

While the murals of George Town are the creation of more than one artist, the majority of them are the finished products of the Lithuanian artist Ernest Zacharevic. For the 2012 George Town Festival, he was commissioned to create a series of public paintings which he chose to do it a different style. By adding physical objects from day to day life like chairs bicycles etc. to many of his paintings, he presented his art in an uncommon and different design. The end result?

Everybody loved it and his work brought him immediate appreciation. Fast forward to current times, his murals one of the main attractions of George Town. And it goes without saying that they were one of our most favorite things in George Town. After all, why else we would visit each of them twice in two days!

Do you like street art and murals like I do? Do tell me, I will love to know.