Penang 2014 Day 1 : Part of our Penang series of Articles.  Click Here for the rest of the series.

Little Children on a Bicycle mural at Armenian Street

Following the order of Maslow pyramid… after satisfying our thirst with our CENDOL adventure, we move up the pyramid to satisfy our culture hunger. The Great George Town Street Art experiences.

While Street Art is not a new concept in developed countries, however in Malaysia, this is a new and brave concept which the Penang Government has bravely adopt. It takes guts, open mindedness, dynamics and creativity to implement the idea around the Georgetown area. For this brilliant initiative, hats off to the Penang Government and it’s leaders.

Thumbs up to the Penang Government                                                             Photo Credit: “El Gabo” – Davide Gabino via Compfight cc

There are two main street art concept around Georgetown area. They are stencil art and Mural – interactive street art.

Stencil Art

In strategic locations, you can locate stencil art which are made out of wire sculpture. Each stencil art has a unique story or iconic messages which character depicts the essence of Penang. This picture below it’s about a tourist falling in love with a street food – famous Penang Char Koay Teow.

We were told when light from the sun or streetlamps hits the stencil, it leaves a shadow on the wall. Even more charming when the shadow trails the sun’s movement.

Stencil or Wire Sculpture

Mural – interactive street art

The second art are mural – interactive street art which depicts the every day life or the cultural aspects of Penang. These mural are so popular now that visitors and tourist would pose together with the mural as part of the photography experience.

So armed with a full stomach and charged up with child like enthusiasm, off we went hunting for more Street Art to capture for our lovely readers. Our first capture was the Naughty little boy at the “Reaching Up” mural, at Canon Street.

“Reaching Up” mural, at Cannon Street

The Mural was located at the entrance of the Busy Bodhi Cafe. The cafe had cleverly used this mural as an advertising tool which they had featured in their poster.

Clever Advertising by the Busy Bodhi Cafe

Encourage by our first discovery, we move on to hunt other secret treasures in the Georgetown Street Jungle. We crept up to the King of the jungle himself.  The Lion in full Chinese Lion Makeup giving a dance outside a shop. The i-Box Museum of Glass, Armenian Street.

Lion dance mural at Armenian Street

Besides the shop there was this 3 little princess giving us a wink.

3 little princesses Mural

Next to the shop, a band was performing to collect donations for the St Joseph Home. The band was performing with recycled material as instruments. Take a close look at the photo and you can see the guitar is made out of a tennis racket and the drums out of food tin cans. The artsy vibe of Georgetown was already giving us an artsy frenzy.

Band with Recycled Material Instruments

From one Big Cat we crept up to another small cat. Look at the pictures to make sense. Click on the photos to see them in fullsize.

Giant Cat Mural

Giant Cat Mural

Giant Cat Mural

Mouse and the Giant Cat Mural

Small Mouse Dreams Big Mural

On another street we encounter this Mural of Kittens. George town must be a dangerous place to be a rat.

Kittens Mural

Next we chance upon the “I want Pau” Mural. We love the themes. Cute and innocent. The little joys of the youth. We saw a group of girls dressed in graduation gowns were taking photos. I snap one waving good bye. Perhaps to unemployment…  or to her fellow students, as she enters the working world.

I want Pau Mural

After seeing the I want Pau Mural. There was an inner mural painting within my psyche. It was the I want Beer Mural. We walk across the road where I bought a can of beer from a street vendor. This moves us to our visit to one of the jetties – the Chew Jetty. That would be covered in another post. click here to read about it.