Latest Posts

Street Art Who’s Who: Alice Pasquini

Published by fraumorena

Alice Pasquini is an Urban storyteller. A female street artist who wants to change the world by bringing some hope back into the streets. Her warmly colorful artworks show strong independent women, playing kids and intimate moments. Often she also uses short text passages within her artworks to deepen the message.

Her work is an expression of being alive, of appreciating the single moment and not loosing ones childlike curiosity. So Alice is somehow like «Alice in wonderland» 🙂 – she creates an urban wonderland. Read More

Venice Street Art

Published by fraumorena

Street Art in Venice is a lot more subtile than in other cities. You don’t have huge murals here (at least I didn’t find any). The artworks are often better integrated into the existing environment – hidden treasures that you have to keep a lookout for. Most artworks I found in Dorsoduro and Santa Croce apart from touristic routes. Read More

The Venetian Lagoon: Peaceful Burano

Published by fraumorena

One of the most beautiful things I saw during my stay in Venice was Burano! A little island close to the main island of Venice – less touristic, more authentic. Just beyond descriptions! Colorful little houses that reminded me of cities in Mexico (just from films as I haven’t seen it personally yet – unfortunately!) but without cheerfully crowded streets. I was generally surprised how quiet Venice and its surrounding island were apart from the touristic routes. Sometimes it even felt like nobody was living there at all. But as my AirBnB Host Anna told me, the northern Italian people are more quiet than their southern neighbours. So it was a bit surreal to walk through the empty little streets surrounded by all these lively colours.

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Burano and its neighbouring island Mazzorbo were one of the first settlement sides of the Venetian Lagoon. To the present day Burano was a fisherman’s island. They say that the fishermen painted their houses in these bright colours to recognize them from the water and to clearly contrast from neighbour buildings. Sometimes they even split one house into two colours as you can see in the picture below 😉 Read More

Generator Hostel Venice

Published by fraumorena

When I travel, I normally prefer staying in Airbnb apartments but in Venice it was simply too expensive to book a room just for me through airbnb. This is why I decided to stay in a hostel. And I was more than excited as I found the Generator Hostel Venice. A hostel located in an old converted grain house with a peculiar charm. A mixture of ancient furniture, tessellated floor, Persian carpets and modern details. Read More

November Melodies: Venice

Published by fraumorena

By starting this blog I also want to start a new way of publishing blog posts. I no longer just want to write a single post about a place that I’ve visited but converge to it from different angles.

This month it’s all about VENICE.

I want to show different faces of Venice and its surrounding Lagoon. I asked myself if there is street art in a historic city like Venice. I discovered the beautiful little islands close to Venice with its colourful houses together with a bunch of interesting people that I met in my hostel. Moreover, I will show you the exhibition that impressed me the most and give you some historical facts about the city dealing with urbanity.

Of course if there are topical issues that need to be covered I will edge them in.
And last but not least a sneak peek: next month REYKJAVIK will be the topic 🙂

Venice: Rewarding encounters

Published by fraumorena

I met Eduardo on a sunny autumn day in the streets of the lonely Island of Burano. Between the little colourful houses that reminded him of a town in Mexico. He was wandering around alone and seemed to enjoy the solitude. Like a lonesome wolf. I wasn’t surprised to read in his couchsurfing profile days later that one of his favorite books is «El lobo estepario» – the Spanish version of the novel «Steppenwolf» by the German author Hermann Hesse. Yes, Eduardo reminded me of a wolf. But a good one 😉 A peaceful wolf with curious shining eyes.

The Generator hostel connection

And Eduardo «El lobo» joined our group. «Our group» that was Rozka from Egypt, Jelena from Serbia, Nicolas and Tiphaine from France – a multi-cultural group that had just formed the evening before in the common area of the Generator Hostel – our mutual base in Venice. Read More

London atmosphere

Published by fraumorena

As I love to wander around with my camera trying to catch some of the hidden treasures of a city, of its atmosphere I decided to do at least a bit of Sightseeing when I was in London. I walked along the Themse through South Bank, passed the OXO Tower, had a look into Tate Modern where I visited a little exhibition about “Poetry and Dreams” and on my way to “The Shard” I came across this wonderful food market:

The market is located under some railway bridges. So when you look up there are metal pillars that form an interesting contrast to the antique market stands. It’s one of the oldest food markets in London and has a very unique atmosphere.

OXO Tower

As I mentioned I passed the OXO Tower and the inner courtyard struck my attention. There was a little café inside and the opposite brick wall was sprayed with words. One part of the wall was dotted with colorful glow-sticks – a funny thing about that: some days later this building appeared in one of my favorite series “Sherlock” 🙂

… And here are some more pictures I took in the attempt to catch a bit of Londons atmosphere:

Little street in South Bank

Passage of Covent Garden
Covent Garden surroundings
Covent Garden surroundings
Tate Modern

London Street Art Tour

Published by fraumorena

Last Saturday I attended a Street Art Tour through East London (Shoreditch) with my London-based friends Elly and Filipe.

Our Guide: a small, sporty woman with a French accent, husky voice, dark hair, black eyes and a quite nice tattoo on her neck (two f-holes like you can find them on violin instruments) that just appeared when she was turning her head and when her plait flew aside. She told us a lot about the different artists and street art techniques.

Here are some of my favorite ones (I show you not only pictures from this Street Art Tour but also from a tour through Brick Lane and surroundings I did on my own two years ago):

El Mac

Known for his contemporary photorealistic portraiture. His images often depict people who live in the area where he paints, mainly members of the Chicano and Mexican community with whom he grew up.

Ben Murphy

Also known as “Tape Artist” creates his artwork with black tape on windows.

Invader

Artist from Paris who works with tiles in different sizes to create pixel-like characters. His work is an homage to the 80s video game Space Invaders.

VHILS

The artist from Lisbon has developed an archaeological style of portraiture. It’s a kind of “creative destruction” of the wall ground since he uses a cordless hammer drill to carve out the portraits.

Conor Harrington

His work is a fusion of graffiti and fine art techniques. He creates huge frescos depicting figures of the Napoleonic military era and battle scenes.

Banksy

Of course BANKSY’s artworks mustn’t be missing on this tour 😉 As our guide said: “Nowadays you recognize a REAL Banksy by the plexiglass in front of it.” We catched one of his artworks a the CARGO bar in Shoreditch. The other two pictures where taken in 2012 on my last London trip.

ROA

Belgian Street Artist who’s well known for his huge black and white animal murals.

Stik

London Artist who’s renowned for his simple, androgynous stick figures.

Pez
Artist from Barcelona who’s renown for his happy fish characters.

Christiaan Nagel

Originally from South Africa the artist covered London with a lot of large, bright mushrooms atop buildings, bridges and walls while he was living in the city for three years.

If you’re interested in doing the tour by yourself – here is the link: http://streetartlondon.co.uk/tours/

There is also a very recommendable App with additional facts about the artists and a London map with the artworks marked on it.