Penang: Searching for street art in George Town

George Town is renowned for its street art, with more than 100 murals adorning the city’s buildings.

After touring George Town’s historical sites, museums and temples, I set off on a hunt through the city’s streets in search of its famous artworks.

I made my way to the area around Armenian Street, where many of the city’s murals are to be found.

Discovering Ernest Zacharevich’s works

It didn’t take long before I found my first piece thanks to a group of young people crowding around a building on Lebuh Ah Quee taking photos of Boy on a Motorcycle (above).

The cool, clever mural was painted by Lithuanian artist Ernest Zacharevich, who’s widely credited with starting the city’s street art scene.

It was one of a series of murals – along with Children on a Bicycle on nearby Armenian Street (above) – he painted in 2012 for the George Town Festival, an annual celebration of art, music, film, theatre and dance.

In the 12 years since the murals were painted some had become quite faded. So last month, Zacharevich returned to George Town to restore four of them, documenting the process on Instagram.

Other murals around Armenian Street

It was incredibly hot and humid during my stroll, almost unbearably so, and I didn’t feel up to walking miles through the streets to see all the city’s most celebrated murals.

So I stuck to a small area around Armenian Street, making sure to venture up the alleys, as well as the streets, as some of the best known murals can be found in the most unassuming of places.

A few of the other well-known murals I stumbled across included Teach You Hokkien (above), Roti Seller and Men Holding the Wall.

Teach You Hokkien (above) is a 2m-high artwork on Lorong Soo Hong painted in 2014 by Malaysian artists Jim Oo Chun Hee and John Cheng.

While Roti Seller (above) and Men Holding the Wall (below) adorn the walls of a little lane near Ah Quee Street.

Chew jetty murals

George Town’s street art can be found all over the city, including the clan jetties and I came across a few eye-catching murals while exploring Chew Jetty earlier in the day.

The jetty’s best known mural is Folklore by the Sea (above), which was painted in 2018 by the Singaporean artist Yip Yew Chong to highlight the clan jetties’ traditional way of life.

I also really liked the joyful Ah Ma and Ah Soon (above). It means ‘grandmother and grandson’ and was painted by local artist Simon Tan.

Steel rod sculptures

If you’re searching for street art in George Town, it’s worth keeping an eye out for the comic steel rod sculptures that adorn the city’s walls, too.

The 52 humorous sculptures were created in 2009 by Sculpture at Work to tell historic anecdotes about the area, having been commissioned by the state to mark the city being granted UNESCO World Heritage status.

The ‘Then and Now’ sculpture on Armenian Street (above), for example, reveals the Hokkien community used to call the thoroughfare Coppersmith’s Street because it was where copper and brassware were made.

I enjoyed my brief art hunt through George Town’s streets and alleyways, despite the appalling humidity.

It was fun strolling around the city, eyes peeled, wondering what I was going to find next.

I just wish it hadn’t been quite so hot and humid, so I could have spent longer exploring George Town’s fantastic artworks without feeling as though I was going to melt.