Street art scenes vary widely across regions, shaped by local cultural traditions, legal frameworks, and urban development patterns. The following sections document notable concentrations and characteristics of street art worldwide.
North America Canada In
Montreal, with over 80 murals and counting since the foundation of
MURAL Festival in 2013, the annual street art festival contributed to creating
Le Plateau-Mont-Royal as an epicenter for urban arts.
Villeray,
Downtown Montreal Le Sud-Ouest,
Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, and multiple art districts also continue to broaden the street art circuit within the Island of Montreal. The Under Pressure annual graffiti festival, the largest of its kind in North America, celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2021.
Toronto has a significant
graffiti scene.
Calgary, while historically having a smaller graffiti street art scene, recently started the Beltline Urban Mural Project (BUMP) with artists from all over the world creating large murals in the city center.
United States ,
Lower East Side, New York City (1982)
New York City attracts artists from around the world. In
Manhattan, "post-graffiti" street art grew in the 1980s from the then largely vacant neighborhoods of
SoHo the
Lower East Side and parts of
East Village. The
Chelsea art district became another locale, with area galleries also hosting formal exhibitions of street artist's work. In
Brooklyn, the
Williamsburg and
Dumbo neighborhoods—especially near the waterfront—are recognized street art sites. New York City's unofficial mural district is in
Bushwick, Brooklyn, with curatorial gatekeeping by a non-profit organization called The
Bushwick Collective.
Chicago has many forms of street art emerging but some of the most popular artists that can be seen everywhere in Chicago is
Matthew Hoffman and his
You Are Beautiful project, Sentrock, Jc Rivera (The Bear Champ), and Hebru Brantley. Programs in the
Pennsylvania cities of
Philadelphia and
Pittsburgh provide funding to agencies who employ street artists to decorate city walls. The
Mural Arts Program established in 1984 has helped Philadelphia earn praise as the "City of Murals". The project was initiated to encourage graffiti artists toward a more constructive use of their talents. Murals backed by
The Sprout Fund in Pittsburgh were named the "Best Public Art" by the
Pittsburgh City Paper in 2006.
Street art in Atlanta centers on the
Old Fourth Ward and
Reynoldstown neighborhoods, the
Krog Street Tunnel, and along the 22-mile
BeltLine railway corridor which circles the inner city. Atlanta established a Graffiti Task Force in 2011. Although the city selected a number of murals that would not be targeted by the task force, the selection process overlooked street art of the popular Krug Street Tunnel site. Art created in conjunction with the
Living Walls street art conference, which Atlanta hosts annually, was spared. Some actions were taken by the unit, including arrests of artists deemed vandals, caused community opposition; some considered the city's efforts as "misdirected" or "futile". After being sued by a group of artists in 2017 the city of Atlanta agreed not to enforce an ordinance requiring artists to obtain city approval for murals on private property. Images and locations of over 200 works of Atlanta street art can be found on the Atlanta Street Art Map.
Sarasota, Florida, hosts an annual street art event, the
Sarasota Chalk Festival, founded in 2007. An independent offshoot known as
Going Vertical sponsors works by street artists, but some have been removed as controversial.
Los Angeles's
Arts District is known for its high concentration street murals. The neighborhood of
Hollywood and streets such as
Sunset Boulevard,
La Brea,
Beverly Boulevard,
La Cienega, and
Melrose Avenue are among other key locations.
LAB ART Los Angeles, opened in 2011, devotes its 6,500 square feet of gallery space to street art. Artwork by locals such as
Alec Monopoly,
Annie Preece,
Smear and
Morley are among the collection. San Francisco's
Mission District, center of the
Mission School movement, has densely packed street art along Mission Street, and along both
Clarion and
Balmy Alleys. Streets of
Hayes Valley,
SoMa,
Bayview-Hunters Point and the
Tenderloin have also become known for street art.
San Diego's East Village, Little Italy, North Park, and South Park neighborhoods contain street artwork of
VHILS,
Shepard Fairey, Tavar Zawacki a.k.a.
ABOVE,
Space Invader,
Os Gêmeos, among others. Murals by various Mexican artists can be seen at
Chicano Park in the
Barrio Logan neighborhood.
Chicano Park, which was a part of people's land takeover in 1970, celebrated its 52nd anniversary in 2022. The more than 80 murals depict many aspects of Latino culture from
lowrider culture to
Aztec warriors. The intent for the art provided people enough positive evidence to respect it and leave it be. These spaces were then seen as a place of activism and pride, rather than vandalism. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, Ground Floor Murals has created works that recognize the multicultural communities of San Diego, including Mexican singer
Vicente Fernández, players from the
San Diego Padres, and important local community members. Their first mural was of Padres' legend,
Tony Gwynn in
City Heights.
Richmond, Virginia has over 100 murals created by artists, many of whom are alumni of
Virginia Commonwealth University's School of the Arts or current students there. Some of the murals are privately commissioned by individuals and businesses, some are created by solo street artists, and some are collaborative group fund-raising projects.
Denver street artists have been busy brightening (and enlightening) the urban landscape for decades by making canvases of the city's alleyways, building exteriors, warehouses, garage doors and storefronts. The city of Denver has a whole area called the River North Art District (RiNo) that is dedicated to the work of local creative artists. Most artists in the RiNo district are commissioned by the local business owners who want to give their buildings colorful imagery.
Mexico The manifestations of street art in Mexico began in the late 80s in Mexico City, in multifamily buildings in the north of the city, and in the subway. Since then, urban art and graffiti have become an essential part of the cultural identity of the city halls of the metropolis. Currently, various associations and groups are dedicated to creating and finding spaces for urban art in Mexico City and throughout the country. Several artists, both emerging and established, both national and foreign, have brought their art to the country. In
Oaxaca, political printmaking collectives including ASARO,
Colectivo Subterráneos, and Lapiztola produce wheat-pasted prints addressing indigenous rights and social justice issues. There are also media, such as All City Canvas, specialized in the dissemination of urban art in Mexico, Latin America, and the rest of the world. Even in 2012, All City Canvas was the first organization to create a street art festival in Mexico, seeking to join international efforts and showcase urban art for a week in Mexico City. In recent years, they have produced several murals in collaboration with talented artists such as
Vhils, It's a Living and Bier in Brood, as part of the All City Canvas Global Series in some cities in Mexico and the United States. The objective of the initiative is to create an impact on society through a large-scale piece of art. In that way, it has been possible to create a universal language around this artistic manifestation.
South America Buenos Aires has developed a reputation for its large scale murals and artworks in many subway stations and public spaces. The first graffiti artists started painting in the street in the Argentine capital in the mid-1990s after visiting other countries in Europe and South America. One of the first recognized street artists in Argentina is Alfredo Segatori, nicknamed 'Pelado', who began painting in 1994 and holds the record for the largest mural in Argentina measuring more than 2000 square meters. An abundance of buildings slated for demolition provides blank canvases to a multitude of artists, and the authorities cannot keep up with removing artists' output. "Population density" and "urban anxiety" are common motifs expressed by "Grafiteiros" in their street art and
pichação, rune-like black graffiti, said to convey feelings of class conflict. Influential Brazilian street artists include Claudio Ethos,
Os Gêmeos, Vitche, Onesto, and Herbert Baglione.
Caracas at the beginning this art the works had a more cultural air, much of the first street arts in the country were related to politics. Messages of disagreement or support for the leaders of the moment predominated. Over the years, street art in Venezuela has evolved. The works with political accents continued to star in the streets of the country, but culture became part of the arena. File:Graffiti Perú.jpg|Graffiti in
Lima, Peru (2014) File:Os Gêmeos.jpg|Work of Brazilian artists
Os Gêmeos, in
Lisbon, Portugal (2011) File:Los feos somos mas toxicomano.png|alt=Toxicomano|Graffiti in
Bogotá, Colombia (S. XXI)
Europe in
Tartu, Estonia
London became one of the most pro-graffiti cities in the world in the 2010s. Although officially condemned and heavily enforced, street art has a huge following and in many ways is embraced by the public, for example,
Stik's stick figures.
Dulwich Outdoor Gallery, in collaboration with
Street Art London, is an outdoor "gallery" of street art in
Dulwich, southeast London, with works based on traditional paintings in
Dulwich Picture Gallery.
Bristol has a prominent street art scene, due in part to the success of
Banksy, with many large and colorful murals dominating areas of the city.
Ostend, Belgium, hosts an international street art festival. In 2018, US art magazine Juxtapoz described The Crystal Ship as "an art festival that is quickly becoming one of the major annual street art events in the world". Today, it is just that. Having seen the light of day in 2016, every year, The Crystal Ship paints the town of Ostend red (and blue, and green, and yellow, and quite possibly every other colour you can imagine) by inviting a host of acclaimed street artists to get inspired by its people, landscape, and heritage. Curator Bjorn Van Poucke is the driving force behind this street art walhalla, where the work of artists like Axel Void (USA), Paola Delfín (Mexico), Escif (ES), Miss Van (FR), Sebas Velasco (ES), Elian (AR) and Wasted Rita (PT) transform the city.
Paris has an active street art scene that is home to artists such as
Space Invader,
Jef Aérosol,
SP 38 and
Zevs. Some connect the origins of street art in France to
Lettrism of the 1940s and
Situationist slogans painted on the walls of Paris starting in the late 1950s.
Nouveau realists of the 1960s, including
Jacques de la Villeglé,
Yves Klein and
Arman interacted with public spaces but, like
pop art, kept the traditional studio-gallery relationship. The 1962 street installation
Rideau de Fer (Iron Curtain) by
Christo and Jeanne-Claude is cited as an early example of unsanctioned street art. In the 1970s, the site-specific work of
Daniel Buren appeared in the Paris subway.
Blek le Rat and the
Figuration Libre movement became active in the 1980s. The 13 arrondissement is actively promoting street art through the Street Art 13 project. That includes two remarkable frescos by D*Face from London: "Love will not tear us apart" and "Turncoat". Between October 2014 and March 2015, Fondation EDF hosted
Jérôme Catz's exhibition "#STREET ART, L'INNOVATION AU CŒUR D'UN MOUVEMENT", which featured new technologies integrated with pieces by artists including Shepard Fairey, JR, Zevz, and Mark Jenkins. The exhibition became the second most-visited exhibit at EDF since it opened in 1990. Street artist
John Hamon's work primarily involves projecting or pasting a poster of his photograph above his name on buildings and monuments across the city.
Street art on the Berlin Wall was continuous during the time
Germany was divided, but street art in
Berlin continued to thrive even after reunification and is home to street artists such as
Thierry Noir Tavar Zawacki a.k.a.
ABOVE and
SP 38. Post-communism, cheap rents, and ramshackle buildings gave rise to street art in areas such as
Mitte,
Prenzlauer Berg,
Kreuzberg, and
Friedrichshain. In 2016,
StreetArtNews initiated an urban artwork in the name of
Urban Nation Berlin, in which several famous artists participated. The second largest city in Estonia,
Tartu, has been called the Estonian street art capital. While
Tallinn has been against graffiti, Tartu is known for the street art festival Stencibility and for being home to a wide range of works from various artists. The street art scene in
Greece has been active since the late 1980s but gained momentum in
Athens leading up to the country's 2011 financial crisis, with a number of artists raising voices of resistance, creating allegorical works and social commentary in the historic city center and
Exarhia district.
The New York Times published a story about the crisis in relation to street art and art in general. Street art by
Bleepsgr, whose work has been categorized as "
artivism", can be found in neighborhoods such as
Psiri. In Spain,
Madrid and
Barcelona represent the most graffiti populated cities, while
Valencia,
Zaragoza and
Málaga also have a street art scene. , Italy
Italy has been very active in street art since the end of the 1990s; some of the most famous street artists include
BLU,
108, and
Sten Lex. Street art in
Amsterdam has a long history. In the mid-1960s, the counterculture movement named the
provos already used the street as a canvas. Member
Robert Jasper Grootveld wrote things like "Klaas komt" (English: "Klaas is Coming!") throughout the whole city. At the end of the 1970s, young artists from the
punk culture wrote on the decayed city. Well-known artists from this 'No Future-generation' are
Dr. Rat and Hugo Kaagman, the
stencil art pioneer who made his first stencil back in 1978. Yaki Kornblit brought New York graffiti artists like Blade,
Dondi,
Futura 2000 and
Rammellzee to Amsterdam to exhibit in his gallery in the early 80s. This inspired the youth, from which a new generation style writers emerged that was later recorded in the documentary
Kroonjuwelen (2006). Names as Delta, Shoe, Jaz, Cat22,
High, Again and Rhyme left their mark on the city. In the early 1990s, Amsterdam became the epicenter of the graffiti movement, with a focus on its Metro system, bringing writers such as Mickey, Zedz and Yalt to the capital of the Netherlands. Figurative street art became more and more common in the streets around the turn of the century. Morcky, Wayne Horse, The London Police en
Laser 3.14 communicated through their work on the street. The city of
Bergen is looked upon as the street art capital of
Norway. British street artist Banksy visited the city in 2000 and inspired many to take their art to the streets.
Dolk is among local street artists in Bergen. His art can be seen around the city. Bergen's city council in 2009 chose to preserve one of Dolk's works with protective glass. In 2011, the city council launched a plan of action for street art from 2011 to 2015 to ensure that "Bergen will lead the fashion for street art as an expression both in Norway and
Scandinavia". The city of
Stavanger is host to the annual
NuArt Festival, an event dedicated to promoting street art; the festival is one of the oldest curated "street art" festivals in the world. Nuart Plus is an associated industry and academic symposium dedicated to street art. The event takes place each September.
Oslo, by contrast, traditionally has a
zero tolerance policy against graffiti and street art, but the sanctioned NuArt RAD project is changing that. , Stockholm Street art came to
Sweden in the 1990s and has since become the most popular way to establish art in public space. The 2007 book "Street Art
Stockholm", by Benke Carlsson, documents street art in the country's capital. The street art scene of
Finland had its growth spurt from the 1980s onwards until in 1998 the city of
Helsinki began a ten-year zero-tolerance policy which made all forms of street art illegal, punishable with high fines, and enforced through private security contractors. The policy ended in 2008, after which legal walls and art collectives have been established.
Wheatpaste and stencil graffiti art in
Denmark increased rapidly after visits from
Faile, Banksy,
Ben Eine, and Shepard Fairey between 2002 and 2004, especially in urban areas of
Copenhagen such as
Nørrebro and
Vesterbro. Copenhagen is home of
TEJN, the artist credited with introducing the
Lock On street art genre. The street art scene in
Switzerland saw the artist
Harald Nägeli in the late 1970s. Activity from the nineties on included artists like Toast and
NEVERCREW. , Poland, 2016Since the collapse of communism in 1989, street art became prevalent in
Poland throughout the 1990s. Artists like Sainer and Bezt became known for painting huge murals on buildings and walls in the 2010s. In the city of
Łódź a permanent city exhibition was financed in 2011, under the patronage of Mayor Hanna Zdanowska, called "Urban Forms Gallery". The exhibition included work from some of Poland's elite street artists as well as globally known artists. Despite being mostly accepted by the public, with authorities occasionally allowing artists licenses to decorate public places, other properties are still illegally targeted by artists.
Warsaw and
Gdańsk are other Polish cities with a vibrant street art culture. A monument in
Bulgaria depicting Soviet Army soldiers was targeted by anonymous street artists in June 2011. The soldiers of the monument, located in
Sofia, were embellished to portray
Ronald McDonald,
Santa Claus,
Superman, and others. The monument existed in that condition for several days before being cleaned. Some citizens were in favor of allowing the embellishments to remain.
Mariupol in
Ukraine saw building murals playing a symbolic role in the 2014 and
2022 Russian invasions of Ukraine. In 2018, the Ukrainian artist
Sasha Korban painted the mural
Milana on a facade of a Mariupol building, showing 3-year-old Milana Abdurashytova, a survivor of a 2015 pro-Russian missile attack, as a symbol of resilience. The mural was destroyed in late 2022 while Mariupol was still occupied by Russian forces. Also in 2022, the Italian artist
Jorit painted a mural of a young Australian girl, found in an online search for the word "pigtails", on another building facade in Mariupol, initially stating that the subject was a girl from
Donbas who had lived in Mariupol. His inclusion in the mural of a bomb labelled "NATO" in a town that was severely bombed by Russian forces and the relation with Korban's destroyed mural were criticised by media including
Il Giornale and the investigative journalism website
Valigia Blu.
Moscow became a hub for
Russian graffiti artists as well as international visitors in the 2000s. The Street Kit Gallery, opened in 2008, is dedicated to street art and organizes events in galleries, pop-up spaces and on the streets of the city. The 2009 Moscow International Biennale for Young Art included a section for street art. Active artists include Make, RUS, and
Kyiv-based Interesni Kazki (also active in Miami and Los Angeles). Britain's
BBC network highlighted the artwork of Moscow street artist
Pavel 183 in 2012. The dissolution of the Soviet Union left
Georgia with tantalizing urban space for the development of street art. Although it is a relatively new trend in Georgia, the popularity of street art is growing rapidly. The majority of Georgian street artists are concentrated in
Tbilisi. Street art serves as a strong tool among young artists to protest against the many controversial issues in the social and political life in Georgia and thus gets considerable attention in society. Influential artists include
Gagosh, TamOonz, and Dr.Love.
Sarajevo became a major hub for street art in Southeastern Europe in the 2010s. It hosts the
Sarajevo Street Art Festival and the acclaimed 3D street art festival,
Beton Fest. The former is held in July of every year and lasts for three days. Each year's edition is made up of numerous street performances, the creation of a new street arts bohemian quarter in the city, concerts, the painting of large murals and the showcasing of other creative art forms. The latter is the only 3D street art festival in Southeastern Europe and has hosted many renowned street artists such as Vera Bugatti, Giovanna la Pietra, Tony Cuboliquido, Manuel Bastante and others. File:2007 011 CES Schelling Monsters.jpg|
Painting in the Global Tradition by
Ces53, a Dutch street artist File:Sesimbra Grafitti Gemeniano Cruz.jpg|Street art in
Sesimbra, Portugal File:P1060341komp.JPG|Graphic-Domain in
Heidelberg, Germany, by Nicola Pragera File:BLU prag.jpg|Mural by BLU,
Gaza Strip,
Prague, Czech Republic File:015 Urban art in Katowice, Poland.jpg|Urban art in
Katowice, Poland File:Modern Prizren.jpg|Street art in the old city of
Prizren, Kosovo File:Propagating machine NEVERCREW.jpg|Mural painting "Propagating machine" realized by
Nevercrew in
Mannheim, Germany, in 2017 File:Stars and the starfish.jpg|Work by
Bleepsgr in
Athens, Greece File:Street art in Tbilisi.jpg|"Geometrical boundaries of Time", street art in
Tbilisi, Georgia File:El Bocho Citizens Hamburg.jpg|alt=Paste-up of El Bocho|Paste-up of El Bocho in
Hamburg, Germany File:BordaloII Nuart Aberdeen-2018-DSC07437.jpg|Unicorn made of waste by Portuguese street artist Artur Bordalo (BordaloII) at NuArt Festival Aberdeen (2018) File:Street art in Naples.jpg|Street art in Naples File:CF0410 Berlin Mitte art urbain rwk.jpg|Urban art in
Mitte (
Berlin, 2025).
Asia India In
India, street art is hugely popular. Many of the film and TV series promotional materials were created by street painters/artists. Currently, digital art is replacing hand painted posters. From 1960 to the 1990s, the street posters worked well and impressed audiences. In the 1990s the hand painted posters started to be replaced by flex banners outside theatres. After the 2000s, the popularity of street posters started to decline, being replaced by digitally printed posters. Street art
painting and street art drawing
sketch has since declined in
India due to the replacement by digital posters.
Malaysia , by Lithuanian artist
Ernest Zacharevic In
George Town, Penang, Lithuanian artist
Ernest Zacharevic created a series of wall murals depicting local culture, inhabitants and lifestyles. They now stand as celebrated cultural landmarks of George Town, with
Children on a Bicycle becoming one of the most photographed spots in the city. Since then, the street art scene has blossomed.
South Korea In
South Korea's second-largest city,
Busan, German painter Hendrik Beikirch created a mural over high, considered Asia's tallest at the time of its creation in August 2012. The monochromatic mural portrays a fisherman. It was organized by
Public Delivery.
Thailand A great deal of street art by well-known artists can be found in the
Bang Rak district of Bangkok, on Soi Charoen Krung 28–32, between
Charoen Krung road and the
Chao Phraya river.
Middle East Israel Areas of southern Tel Aviv including Florentin in the 1990s, evolved from an industrial zone into street-art districts. Artists repurposed its abandoned garages and crumbling façades with political murals, Hebrew poetry, religious verses and layered exchanges. Artists in the Tel Aviv scene include Dede, Klone, Broken Fingaz Crew, Know Hope, Kis-Lev and Sigalit Landau. Lord K2 said in a Times of Israel article this cultural revival spurred gentrification, prompting much of the graffiti scene to migrate elsewhere. Simon Durban, Banksy's former curater had an exhibition in Tel Aviv in 2025.
United Arab Emirates In
United Arab Emirates' largest city,
Dubai, several famous painters created urban mural artwork on the buildings, which was initiated by StreetArtNews and named it Dubai Street Museum.
Oceania Australia There is street art in major cities as well as regional towns in Australia. Street Art,
Melbourne,
Victoria, Australia
Melbourne is home to one of the world's most active and diverse street art cultures and is home to pioneers in the stencil medium. Street artists such as
Blek le Rat and
Banksy often exhibited works on Melbourne's streets in the 2000s. Works are supported and preserved by local councils. Key locations within the city include
Brunswick,
Carlton,
Fitzroy,
Northcote and the
city centre including the famous
Hosier Lane.
Sydney's street art scene includes
Newtown area graffiti and street art.
Brisbane City Council supports graffiti on traffic signal boxes and other public spaces, although they prosecuted
Anthony Lister in 2016 despite deputy mayor
David Hinchliffe having encouraged him in 1999 to paint signal traffic boxes. The Brisbane Street Art Festival has been running annually since 2016. Many local governments throughout Australia run traffic signal box painting programs.
New Zealand Dunedin pioneered "official" street art in New Zealand with over sixty bus shelters being given unique murals by painter John Noakes during the 1980s, many of them featuring local scenes or scenes inspired by the names of their locales. The Dunedin City Council has since commissioned a series of similar designs to grace electric boxes around the city. Street murals have also become a popular addition to Dunedin, with over 30 works by both local and overseas artists being added to the central city—especially around the
Warehouse Precinct and
Exchange areas—since an international street art festival was held there in the early 2000s. These include one of New Zealand's tallest works, a seven-story mural on the wall of the
Southern Cross Hotel by Fintan Magee.
Christchurch was devastated by
2 earthquakes in 2010 and 2011 and as a result, 8000 homes and 80 percent of the central city were condemned. It wasn't until two and half years later that the city was able to host its first major cultural event –
Rise Street Art Festival held at
Canterbury Museum produced by Australasian street art organizer Oi YOU!. The event attracted over 248,000 visitors (the most-visited show in the museum's history) and saw 15 murals painted across the devastated central city. The murals became community icons for the re-emergence and rebuild of Christchurch. Two further Oi YOU! Festivals, both under the name of
Spectrum, featured large internal exhibitions as well as adding to the city's stock of murals. Since
Rise, over 40 murals have been produced in the central city and the
Lonely Planet guide to global street art featured Christchurch as one of the best cities in the world to experience the art form. In
Auckland in 2009, Auckland's city council permitted electrical boxes to be used as canvases for street art. Local street art group
TMD (The Most Dedicated) won the "Write For Gold" international competition in Germany two years in a row. Surplus Bargains is another local collective. In 2019 in Auckland, a heritage building in the city was painted without the owners' permission by Ares Artifex.
Africa in
Djerbahood, Tunisia Although street art in
South Africa is not as ubiquitous as in European cities,
Johannesburg's central
Newtown district is a center for street art in the city. The "City Of Gold International Urban Art Festival" was held in the city's
Braamfontein civic and student district in April 2012. The
New York Times reported
Cairo's emergence as a street art center of the region in 2011. Slogans calling for the overthrow of the
Mubarak regime has evolved into æsthetic and politically provocative motifs. Street art from
Egypt,
Tunisia,
Yemen, and
Libya has gained notoriety since the
Arab Spring, including a 2012 exhibition in
Madrid's Casa Árabe. ==Exhibitions, festivals and conferences==