Discovering street art in Laon (Montreuil district and railway station) | Part 2

All that remains of this abbey of Cistercian nuns, established in 1651 on the site of a medieval leprosarium, is the 12th-century chapel, the entrance portal and the facade and roofs of the fine building constructed in the 17th century, the abbey having been badly damaged by Allied bombing in 1944. It is now home to the Office Public de l'Habitat de l'Aisne (OPAL), and the chapel is listed as a Historic Monument.

Born in 1974, Dan Kitchener aka DANK is one of the pioneers of street art. It's easy to recognise his compositions, with their bright, saturated colours, depicting numerous urban views in which rain reigns, like this fresco adjacent to the Montreuil media library...

Born in the United States in 1971, he is nicknamed ‘the painter with a photographer's eye’; he draws his inspiration from urban environments to deliver his characteristic stencil paintings, which you can see from Istanbul to Miami, from Baltimore to Paris, and in Laon too... 

Hosni Hertelli was born in Tunis, and uses Arabic calligraphy in his mural work, his pseudonym Shoof (which can be translated as ‘Look’) encouraging the viewer not to read but to look at his works...

In 2022, for the second year running, Christian Guémy aka C215 was appointed curator of the International Festival of Urban Arts by the town of Laon; it was in this context that he created this fresco, an echo of the war in Ukraine, a few months after it broke out; it depicts a mother holding her child in her arms against a blue background, reminiscent of the flag of that country...

Involved in street art since 2013, SATR lives and works in Guangzhou. She uses spray paint to create unique silhouettes and shapes, giving the animals she paints extreme dynamics combined with hazy outlines.

He has been practising graffiti for over 20 years, and you can sense his attraction to Art Brut and children's drawings when you see this profuse and colourful fresco... 

A native of Grenoble who has a strong presence on the Montreal scene, AnkhOne's compositions merrily blend figurative, abstract and graphic elements to create, as he puts it, ‘poetry in motion’...

Aéro is an artist from Rennes (in France) who painted his first graffiti in 1997. At the time, he was only doing lettering. He painted only occasionally for 15 years, as he travelled the world as a chef.A fan of realistic paintings, here is a stilt-walker who is very present in our region, fixed for eternity - we wish him all the best! - on this wall in Laon.

Mahn Kloix was born in Paris in 1980, and moved to Marseille 10 years ago. He goes out to meet people in struggle - whether in France, the United States, Turkey or Tunisia - and also accompanies the demands of zadists or the Femen movement. Since September 2021, he has set his sights on the representation of hands in his very first solo exhibition, ‘Jeux de mains’...

These two visual artists from Reims have been working together for nearly 10 years, and their interests include mythological figures, whose ‘common plastic language [is] naturally turned towards the metaphysical and the dreamlike, (...)’ they like to point out...

British artist Sophie Mess paints vibrant murals inspired by botany, bringing to life birds, inspirational words and oversized flowers, such as those seen here...

Hosni Hertelli was born in Tunis, and uses Arabic calligraphy in his murals, his pseudonym Shoof (which translates as ‘Look’) encouraging the viewer not to read but to look at his work...

James Cochran aka Jimmy C lives and works in London. Fully integrated into the Street Art movement, James Cochran builds bridges between different art forms. These influences have inspired him to create ‘drip painting’, a unique style in the worldwide urban Street Art movement, more generally represented by stencils, collages, tags and graffiti.The artist paints the cities of his time, each with its own poetic atmosphere, its endearing population, but sometimes its own hardships and distress. Here, the city's most famous landmark, Notre-Dame Cathedral, is depicted in a pointillist style...

Collin van der Sluijs is a renowned painter and illustrator from Maastricht in the Netherlands, where he lives and works. A graffiti artist since the age of 11, he is widely recognised for his extraordinary, dreamlike depictions of everyday stories that question our personal pleasures and struggles, as well as society as a whole.

Fikos is a Greek painter and muralist - born in Athens in 1987 - who began studying Byzantine painting at the age of 13.He invented “contemporary Byzantine painting” - a term and artistic style that is now used by many artists around the world - and combines his traditional artistic style with contemporary themes and artistic movements, such as neo-muralism, and focuses on how traditional arts can revive and serve contemporary society... This "woman in green" was painted on this wall in July 2023...

The building you see today is in fact the second church of Saint-Marcel, the original having probably been destroyed during the Revolution. Built between 1900 and 1902, it welcomed its first parishioners in 1907.It should have been extended towards the choir, but this project never came to fruition...

Formerly known as the ‘grimpette de la gare’ or ‘escalier de la gare’, this path was laid out after the railway station was built in 1857, so as to be in strict perspective with the station itself.You'll need a bit of courage to tackle just under 300 steps in one go (all the same!), but the panorama is well worth it once you get to the top! So here's a tip: look at the colours as you walk, it'll make the climb a little easier!In 2021, following a vote on the participatory budget sponsored by the town of Laon, the project to paint the 300 or so steps of the famous station staircase, linking the lower and upper towns, was chosen. The work was undertaken by volunteers from the Cap'No youth team, in collaboration with professional teams. It remains one of the most popular climbs these days, whatever the season...