Photography by Dan Lee.
Butterworth’s murals tell the tale of its glory days – and those to come.
Street art turns public spaces into colourful and vibrant places of interest. Penang has felt its effects since Lithuanian artist Ernest Zacharevic left his mark on the walls of George Town in 2012. His work, “Little Children on a Bicycle”, was featured in The Guardian as one of the best pieces in the world, and George Town was recently listed by Lonely Planet as the only Asian destination that offers street art as one of its attractions.
This phenomenon has since spread across the state to townships such as Balik Pulau and Butterworth. For the latter, street art “began” in 2015 with the Urban Exchange (UX) Festival; large-scale murals were painted by international street artists on walls within Butterworth town, and later in 2016 Thomas Powell, a British artist, was commissioned to paint a few murals on the ruined structures of a derelict building at Bagan Luar – a project funded by Think City in conjunction with Butterworth Fringe Festival (BFF) 2016.
Last year, Think City collaborated with a private KL-based art gallery, ZART Gallery (led by Penang-born architect Zaini Zainul), in art-led place-making project Butterworth Art Walk (BAW), which attempts to integrate street art into heritage conservation.
