The other side of Gent

So OH and I went to Gent (or if you must insist on being English Ghent but it's now how they Belgians spell it) for a couple of days. We'd been to Bruges a couple of years ago and I absolutely loved it so wanted to explore Belgium a bit more. We stayed in an amazing apartment we found through Airbnb. Now I'd been a bit disorganised with planning our trip so didn't have much of a plan when we arrived. So I looked  through the leaflets our host had and stumbled across 'The Concrete Canvas Tour'  which shows all the amazing graffiti in the town. I didn't realise that Gent had so much but boy did it make it special... I'm a sucker for street art!

 Our first day it tipped down but we were armed with our waterproofs and I was still able to take shelter to take photos, even if the angle is a little odd at times. 

 The first two photos were part of a Graffiti Jam featuring many artists, there are a few jams throughtout the city. 

 Bue the Warrior seemed to be the most prolific artist throughout the city. They were always so colourful and made you smile. 

 OK so this isn't graffiti but spotted this patch of green amongst the concrete.  

 We found these down a side street in a garage, without the map we would not have known  they were there. 

 As you can see the styles were so varied

 And weren't restricted to just walls. Above and below were on boardings covering building work in a retail area. 

 The following day the rain disappeared for the most part so I could take wider shots to give some of the art work context. 

 Here is Bue The Warrior again in a park. 

 And this was in a disused car park. 

 Now this is the longest tolerance zones in Europe. Here artists can work without being prosecuted. And it was so vibrant 

 We stumbled across an old house which had it's own kind of graffiti 

 It was everywhere, on garages 

 

 On walls 

 In car parks 

 And finally another tolerance zone. We found  this on our last evening after dinner. It was out in the docks in a huge abandoned warehouse which had room, after room, after room. 

 It was a little spooky being out in the docks which were pretty much deserted as dusk was coming in but I'm so glad I fought beyond my fears as it was stunning.

This was one of my favourite pieces. It's like an homage to cave painting but also reminded me of Degas' paintings of horses - mind blowing! 

Now there is an artist called Roa who's work I've seen across London and have mentioned in at least one previous post. Their style is very distinctive, black and white and so easy to identify. So imagine my surprise to stumble across more of his work and after a bit of googling I realised they are a Gent native. 

Loved these rabbits 

And also these pigs as part of another Jam (apologies for the angle of the photo - it was raining again...) 

And finally a stork. 

This other side of Gent was such a pleasant surprise. Will post soon about the touristy side of Gent - I promise. In the meantime if you're thinking of going to Gent I would highly recommend the Concrete Canvas tour.