Glasgow’s extraordinary street art and the artists who make it, from the ‘Scottish Banksy’ to the women of the Fearless Collective
- Wall murals around Glasgow have turned Scotland’s biggest city into an open-air art gallery; some have been commissioned, others have been painted illegally
- The street art spans multi-storey murals of its patron saints and one inspired by movie Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, and work about Covid-19 and climate change
She is the size of a multi-storey building, towering over passers-by while dressed in a black shirt and purple trousers. Her dark hair is tumbling around her shoulders, as she appears to inspect those below through an enormous magnifying glass clutched in her hand.
For many visitors to Glasgow, this hauntingly lifelike mural of a beautiful woman (allegedly the artist’s partner at the time), on Mitchell Street, is their first introduction to the genius of street art and to the Scottish city’s pulsating art tradition.
The mural, titled Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, inspired by the 1989 film of the same name, is by Australian artist Sam Bates, who goes by the handle Smug and is one of the most well-known street artists in Europe.
Our guide, who is walking us through the streets and frescoes of Glasgow, tells us Smug uses a technique called photorealism to capture faces and life in such graphic detail, with the precision you’d expect from a photograph; this gigantic mural took the artist less than two weeks to complete.
Glasgow’s street art has a knack for drawing your eye to familiar, even mundane objects in a cityscape, such as the surface of brick buildings or pipes, while transforming concrete into an extraordinary canvas.
Much of the art exploits the natural light that seeps into these tight streets and narrow alleyways, to create a 3D effect that brings the murals to life.
