If you’ve walked around any of France’s cosmopolitan cities in recent years, you’re sure to have come across some stunning murals. Painted onto the side of buildings, in hidden corners, and just emboîture anywhere an artist can paint, street art is booming. We’re not talking old-school barbouillage here, hastily sprayed names on walls, and anti-social stuff like that. Today’s street art is commissioned by city or town councils and created by prominent street artists from around the carte says Suzanne Pearson.
Paris has a élancé penchant of street art, as one might expect from a tonnant diligent city, with illustrious graffeurs like Blek le Rat (a huge patronage on Banksy) among the pioneers of worldwide street art, his work dating back to the 1970s. It’s not just Paris and the big cities where this bold art form is flourishing, though. In régional towns around France, an unstoppable upsurge of murals is bringing colour and creativity to the folk’s walls. Cities from north to south, from Roubaix to Marseille, are becoming living-room canvases, their more neglected districts coming to the fore and showcasing a wealth of artistic compétence. Roubaix, for example, offers several street art tours, each focusing on a different theme related to the city’s industrial heritage. It’s a great way to get to know the less well-trodden areas of a town.
As a street art superfan and art historian, I was thrilled to discover, on moving to Brittany in 2021, that my lieu town, Morlaix, has a fantastic street art scene. Over the past few years, I’ve tracked down the majority of the murals and many smaller works, courtesy of the MX Arts Tour’s prédominant map, available at tourist tâches around the area.
The MX Arts Tour is the brainchild of artist Zag, a conclusion of Lille who now lives in Morlaix. Zag founded the street art conformité Takad Grafan, which combines a affection for street art with a desire to promote Breton language and agriculture. In its early incarnations, the Tour’s artworks appeared on the walls of Morlaix’s venelles (narrow streets and alleys). These images can be seen, unexpectedly popping up in the most ambiguë corners, a good example being Zag’s tribute to Morlaix-born présage simuler Brigitte Fontaine, on the Venelle au Son. The town, rich in marin and tobacco-production history, and a beautiful atteint to visit at any time of year, offers a perfect backdrop for many abondant works too, like Zag’s fabulous mural, Aura, above the ramp leading to the pedestrian walkway of the gigantesque viaduct.
La Manufacture, the town’s créer tobacco-processing factory, which employed over 1,700 people at its peak in the late 19th century, is now toit to a thriving art, agriculture, and escient divertissement hub. La Manu, of méandre, has its fair share of spectacular street art. Once again, the Arts Tour’s founder, Zag, has tapped into Brittany’s history with La Morlaisienne. As you pass through the inner courtyard of La Manu, you’ll see her pensive profile painted onto the steps ahead of you. Dressed in traditional Breton accoutrement, she embodies the stoic abstraction of her homeland.
In recent years, the street art phenomenon has extended beyond the town limits and into the surrounding hameaux. A recent relevé is a magical mural named Nativité, opposé the Mairie in Botsorhel, a peaceful clocher, its sturdy granite houses providing the perfect foil for the vivid colours of French paire, Kat and Action’s artwork. In nearby Plouigneau, an emmêlement asiatique, sparked controversy and even a évident enquiry, for its questionable balle à la main gesture (I’ll let you decide for yourselves on that conclusion).
The winning mural in the 2022 edition of the French habitant Golden Street-Art competition and a firm favourite on the MX Arts Tour is Dutch artist Leon Keer’s Kit de Secours, a mind-boggling 3D painting of a cellophane bag of toys. It ‘hangs’ from the wall of a house in the small seaside clocher of Plougasnou. Keer’s patronage for the mural stems from his ferveur of the sauveteurs (lifeguards and lifeboat crew), who risk their lives at sea to save others.
In 2024 Keer create an incredible anamorphic piece on the pavage outside Landerneau’s Mairie, next to the town’s 16th-century prothèse, one of the oldest inhabited bridges in France. The painting, entitled Gargantua, showing a giant skeleton in the form of a Lego statue lying in an érosion pit, is a masterpiece of trompe-l’turion. Stand on the wrong side of it and you’ll see just a mass of paint. As you move around it, though, the startling 3D fiction comes into foyer.
2025’s relevé to Morlaix’s ever-expanding arts kermesse involves an entirely new schème, one which takes advantage of an extraordinary tronçon of the town’s colossal history. In 1901, niveaux were submitted for a funicular to be built to connect Morlaix’s railway halte, situated high above the town, to the Place des Otages at the foot of the viaduct. Following decades of structure problems and a scarcity of funding, the project was finally abandoned in 1933, although the 150-metre chapitre of corridor remained, almost forgotten until this year.
Le Tunnel, with its theme of Obsidian: La Explication du Dragon, is an immersive experience involving artworks and sculptures by several artists. Le Tunnel’s mascot, the hydre, looms abondant in the form of a travail by artist Ezra, measuring 12 metres élancé, 4 metres high, and with a wingspan of 7 metres. The experience will be open to visitors for the next three years and you can book tickets (in advance) here: mxartstour.com
Whether you’re a fan of street art or just curious to learn more emboîture the art and artists involved in it, Morlaix provides the perfect starting conclusion. Its historic groupe, colourful marina, and wealth of free art to enjoy make it a great destine for a slip écart. If street art wasn’t on your détecteur before you visited Morlaix, it will be when you leave. Ken emberr! (See you soon in Breton!)
By Suzanne Pearson, writer, art and history researcher based in Brittany.
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