IPOH STREET ART
Ipoh Street Art
I've recently returned from my second home in Ipoh, Malaysia, a city blessed with plenty of street murals.
Mural Arts Lane is the back alley to Jalan Masjid .....
Eric Lau, a local art teacher, launched Mural Arts Lane in 2014. Among his popular murals are the Children Games Series.
Most of these works have been there for years, free of vandalism, despite being easily accessible. But they do suffer from the tropical climate and, if not restored, eventually weather away ......
2024 .... and four years earlier.
Mural Arts Lane is in Ipoh New Town, but there is plenty more street art in Old Town, around Concubine Lane.
The Uber delivery bike is real and bolted to the wall. In fact Uber doesn't operate in Malaysia where you would instead take a Grab .....
Perhaps the best-known Ipoh mural is Old Uncle with Coffee Cup, opposite the Tourist Information Centre ....
It is one of seven works by Lithuanian artist Ernest Zacharevich, commissioned in 2014.
Four others remain ....
Paper Plane
Evolution
..... the significance being Ipoh's evolution from a tin mining town to a modern city.
Hummingbird
and Trishaw.
Another commission, from 2021, can be seen at the Tun Razak Library. Local artist Mytho ( Nu Sirajuddin Sharifuddin) took three weeks to complete these two murals which flank the main entrance ....
At around the same time Mytho and a team of local artists covered the side walls of the library with 3D murals .....
Four panels around the memorial illustrate The Growth of Civilisation - showing 44 historical figures. The image of the Prophet Muhammad was painted over in the 1990s so as not to offend religious sensitivities.
There is long mural in old town tracing the history of the area, ending with my Majestic condominium block which stands on the site of the old Majestic Movie Theatre ....
When I'm not there, my (5 star) condo is available on Airbnb. It is exceedingly good value, situated in the centre of New Town near the Gerbang Malam (night market).
These are also near The Majestic in New Town ...
According to Time Out, Ipoh is the fifth-best place to visit in Asia. It is a list that discards all the obvious tourist spots - and all the better for that if you favour a relaxing break enjoying the local culture of friendly people. And almost everyone speaks English.
During colonial times, Ipoh was the wealthiest city in South East Asia thanks to tin mining. Huge dredgers were imported from Britain .....
Each dredger, costing today's equivalent of fifty million U.S. dollars, floated on a man-made lake. It had a chain of buckets to scoop out the alluvial tin and carry it to the body of the structure where it was broken up with jets of water.
At one time there were over a hundred of these monsters operating in Malaysia. But the tin eventually ran out in the 1980s. This dredger, which operated until 1982, is in Tanjung Tualang, twenty kilometres south of Ipoh. It was built in Britain in 1938 by F W Payne and Son. It took 18 months to assemble.
Between Tanjung Tualang and Ipoh it's worth checking out a small gallery dedicated to local artist Lat, for many years Malaysia's leading cartoonist .....
Lat's best-known creation is Kampung Boy - about his adventures growing up in the jungle and tin mines of rural Perak in the 1950s, living in a wooden house on stilts.
His work remains hugely popular and Kampung Boy has become a franchise, with its characters decorating calendars, stamps, aeroplanes and chocolate bars .....
The gallery - alongside a replica of Lat's boyhood house - is located next to Silverlakes Village Outlets.
Other local celebs include Oscar-winner Michelle Yeoh and England rugby union international Tony Underwood. Both were born in Ipoh as was Annie Underwood, Tony's mum. Annie was easily picked out by the TV cameras at Twickenham whenever Tony and his Middlesborough-born brother Rory were in action. And she even starred alongside her sons and Jonah Lomu in a Pizza Hut advert.
Excellent, brief write-up about the street art in IPOH, a lovely city often missed by tourists. A big TQ to the blogger for the many photos posted. They captured these murals so well that they can remain as "real street art" in my memory. Come visit Ipoh, you won't be disappointed for beside the street art, Ipoh is also well known for its many yummy food and it's hospitality!!
ReplyDeleteWow! Thanks for sharing the beautiful photos of the murals. Did not know they exist in the city of Ipoh, so, really appreciate you posting them.
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