This article was updated on April 3, 2024.
In the springtime, Montréal becomes a colourful canvas of blossoming flowers and sprouting greenery. But nature’s hues and magnificence don’t only appear in parks and green spaces — they’re also on the city’s walls. Take a stroll and see the beauty of spring in some of Montréal’s botanical murals.
Painted during the Mural Festival, this work by Gleo lives on a wall in the Milton Park area and has become part of the city’s public art collection. Born in Cali, Colombia’s cultural hub, Gleo has been representing South American art in cities across the world for years. The yellow eyeballs and incorporation of flowers are some of her signature elements, and the colour palette on this wide-scale piece brings life to an otherwise unremarkable parking lot.
Frédéric Duquette is a Montréal native and self-taught digital artist who works under the moniker of Fvckrender. This was the first time one of his digital works was converted into a mural, with the painting being done by Jeremy Shantz during the Mural Festival. (Check out Shantz’ other wall form a previous edition of the festival, still on view further up Saint-Laurent Boulevard.) The piece expresses the artists’ perspective on how society was blooming during the chaotic summer of 2020.
Mono Sourcil, a.k.a. Maxilie Martel’s works have hit the Montréal cityscape in full force over the last few years, and she has repped our city with murals in Western Canada. This piece close to Laurier metro station is playful, colourful and screams springtime — with a hint of the mesmerizing Flowers Song from “Alice in Wonderland”. You’ll see something new every time you stare at one of her pieces, discovering new details in the extremely diverse characters she paints.
This wall celebrates a decade of brightening up the Habitations Jeanne-Mance complex. Adams and Guinn had the spring piece go up as part of a series of seasons that were created in the social housing complex rich in mural art, sculptures and installation works.
It really depicts what we Montrealers do best when the warmer weather rolls out: we hit the parks! The almost dizzying horizontal lines capture the movement of the passer-by on the bike path, sidewalk and street.
Painted in honour of the 10th anniversary of Public School Week, this mural represents artist Nikki Küntzle’s perspective on free education and public schools, which is that they’re the first steps to bridge gaps between diverse student bodies, and the opportunity to learn from and with one another. The flowers blooming in the minds of each of the different characters represent different school subjects and thoughts blossoming.
This impressive vertical work by internationally exhibited painter Drew Young, from Vancouver, shares the skyline of the quickly growing Shaughnessy Village where condo towers and hotels are sprouting every year. The lily stands here as a symbol for Montréal’s French heritage, related as it is to the fleur-de-lys emblazoned on the Québec flag, and beyond that, to Greek mythology. Iris was a messenger to the gods, and for Young, her Chariot bridges the creative communities of Canada’s East and West.
Maylee Keo is an artist based in Montréal, whose colourful creations, often inspired by nature, center on subjects dear to her heart like the representation of minorities in our society. With this beautiful work dedicated to women of colour, she brings a lightness and joy to the neighbourhood surrounding Concordia University with tropical flowers from her Asian heritage on a pretty-in-pink background.
With an echinacea flower blossoming from the middle of its forehead, the larger-than-life creature presiding over this mural has monarch-butterfly ears and a gaping mouth. Danaé Brissonnet conceived of him as a traveller, a kind monster assigned to protect a tiny house that lives at the centre of its maw: the house of integrity. Echinacea is a flower of immunity, a symbol of hope and strength.
Mossy green rocks and magic mushrooms grow out of this botanical work by Ankhone, an artist who’s been embellishing the world with his massive-scale wall paintings since the early ‘90s. Originally from Grenoble, he know calls Montréal home and has worked extensively in the creative arts scene here, including on set design for movies by Xavier Dolan. You can see more of his walls all around the city, including downtown.
Shalak Attack is a Canadian-Chilean visual artist dedicated to painting and muralism who for over a decade has manifested her artistic expression on walls across the world. In this piece, painted during the 2023 MURAL Festival, she melds her love of nature with her love of female strength. She dedicated the work to “to mother’s love, the one that units us across borders and across time.”
Melissa Falconer is a Toronto-based self-taught artist who makes Pop Art inspired paintings expressing Black culture in an aim to give her community representation, agency, power, hope and confidence. In this work, her first ever mural painted during the 2023 edition of MURAL Festival, she represents female beauty as both delicate and powerful. The flowers and colourful bird provide a tropical touch.
This surrealist mural by multidisciplinary Montréal artist Danica Olders has touches of Magritte, hints of Escher and lots of cool details that speak of a fantastical universe where flowers and plants both wild and potted thrive. Olders’s art is playfully symbolic, inviting viewers to explore the universe and our place within it.
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