Where to find street art and murals in Seoul?

There are remarkably many cats portrayed in the street art; totally up my alley! Alley? Did I say ‘alley’? How appropriate!;-)

There are several areas that have a lot of street art, but my week only left me enough time to visit one. That was the area around Hongik University.

Hongik University is also known as Hongdae and is a private university, especially known for its faculty of Fine arts.

I read about Mural Street, so I went looking for that. Fortunately I knew it was not that easy to find, so I was prepared to really search for it. And luckily enough I found it.

To give you a hand: if you stand in front of the huge gate before the university, on the right side of it, you see a flowershop. Next to that is an entrance to Mural Street or Mural Alley, where mainly art students have put their marks on the walls.

The main gate. Go to the right side.

When you see this, enter the narrow alley next to it.

It starts of like this. But of course this may have changed by the time you walk there.

But to be precise, you can find murals all over this neighborhood. Every back alley, every side-street may have some murals. I am sure I missed many, since the cold weather was not very inviting for endless strolling around.

Having said that, I am very happy with the street art that I ran into. Let me show you what I found:

There are large pieces on many of the low walls in this area.

See? A cat!

Totally different style on a super-difficult underground; nice!

This piece is beautiful, especially if you check out all the small detailed scenery’s.

I like the colors and style of this work very much.

This is a tiny piece on a big wall. You really have to look closer to see how delicately detailed this little painting is.

I never care too much for graffiti that is little more then ‘tags’. But at least these ones are done in great colors and good style.

This seemed to be the house or studio of an artist. I love his work.

I think this is done by that same artist, but I am not sure.

This portrait of a lady with a floral scarf is huge and beautiful, but there was a car parked right up to it, leaving not even a centimeter of free space. That made it difficult to get a decent picture.

This work is hilarious. On the left we see two cows, standing on a platform painting with white paint over a blue city-by-night-scenery (left) and on the right two cows are working with blue paint to cover the white-with-music-notes-scenery I guess the result is a perpeteum mobile, if you understand what I mean.

Next to large murals, there are many small scribbles, that sometimes are cool too,….

…stencils….

Too bad, that with the apparent creative freedom and artistic spirit in this area, comes also freedom for untalented ‘taggers’ to leave their ugly and stupid marks everywhere. Ruining cool works like this one. Really!

…and stickers.

Walking through the bigger shopping streets in this area, you will see that even there the creative vibe has left it’s marks. Cool!

In another article, to be expected soon, I will show you the rest of the street art that I ran into while exploring Seoul. In that post, I will also sum up the best spots and neighborhoods in Seoul to find street art, besides Hongik.
Stay tuned for more!

Which of the street art pieces appeals most to you? Are you the type that, like me, goes out on the hunt for murals, graffiti and street art? Which cities have you found that are really good for finding street art?