THIS BUGS BUNNY MURAL IS UNOFFICIAL
Bugs Bunny by ADRE
Glass House Lane, Waterford | 13 August 2025
This playful, cartoon-inspired collaboration marks a distinct shift in tone for Glasshouse Lane, highlighting an energetic crew dynamic and a lighthearted approach to urban art.
Artwork Overview & Artists
The Character (Bugs Bunny): The stylised, beanie-wearing Bugs Bunny on the right is the work of Irish graffiti and street artist ADRE (@adre_letters). ADRE is widely recognised across the national scene for his crisp letterforms and subversive, contemporary twists on classic Looney Tunes iconography.
The Background & Tugboat: The abstract graphic forms, floating cloud, and geometric pink-and-blue tugboat on the left were created by Sonny (@sonny_graffiti), signed off with a vibrant green "SONNY" handstyle in the lower corner.
The Style: The mural is an exemplary collaborative cartoon jam. Moving away from somber or photorealistic themes, the artists combine bold pop-art geometry with classic street-character illustration, transforming a standard concrete wall partition into a vibrant visual narrative.
Cataloguing every piece and identifying each artist along Glass House Lane was an exhaustive process. Attribution in underground spaces is notoriously fluid, with conflicting accounts that require careful cross-referencing. For instance, while one mural bearing the tag Novice was locally attributed to an Irish writer, stylistic signatures and records confirm it as the work of the contemporary French visual artist of the same name.
Glass House Lane proved to be an exceptional discovery. Whoever dismissed this alleyway as "poor quality" simply confused the raw, unregulated nature of a communal graffiti wall with a lack of artistic merit.
In reality, the lane preserves a vibrant, authentic tension between international fine-art muralism and grassroots street culture.
The "Off-Grid" Fringe
During the annual Waterford Walls Festival, the official programme operates on a tightly structured framework:
Curated Placement: The festival pairs invited global artists with prominent, large-scale commercial facades.
Formal Approvals: Concept designs require clearance through local council oversight, property owner agreements, and heritage guidelines.
Extensive Logistics: Production relies on heavy machinery, cherry pickers, commercial paint sponsorships, and strict completion windows.
Glass House Lane functions as the festival's spontaneous fringe. It is an open-source, collaborative canvas. Once visiting international artists finish their commissioned multi-storey murals for the day, they head down the lane with their remaining spray cans to join local writers for impromptu paint jams.
Free from commercial briefs, bureaucratic sign-offs, and curatorial guidelines, artists paint side-by-side in pure, unregulated creative freedom.
Technical Breakdown of the Work
The works along the lane represent three distinct disciplines within contemporary urban art:
1. High-Concept Fine Muralism
Taquen: Employs a delicate, overlapping illustrative line technique that demands exceptional spatial discipline when translated onto rough exterior stucco.
Neto Vettorello (The Passage): Uses sophisticated forced perspective and directional lighting to turn a flat alley wall into a deep, three-dimensional architectural portal.
2. Illustrative Textured Realism
Laidback & HMC: Adapted their approach directly to the tactile irregularities of the wall. Laidback’s marine forms and HMC’s barn owls utilise meticulous stippling and cross-hatching, turning coarse masonry into organic shading and depth.
Vial: Monochromatic skulls demonstrate masterclass can control, balancing soft photorealistic fades with sharp subterranean edge-work.
Novice: Introduces a clean, vector-inspired aesthetic, using hard-edged, flat colour-blocking to produce an arresting graphic portrait.
3. Subculture Style-Writing & Character Jams
Rems & Kyser: Precision-driven Wildstyle lettering. Executing balanced interlocking letterforms, crisp outer-glow keylines, and uniform 3D drop-shadows across jagged surfaces demands years of motor discipline and muscle memory.
Staylo, Adre, & Sonny: Energetic character illustration. Staylo’s "sticker pack" arrangement delivers a sharp pop-art subversion of commercial iconography, converting weathered brickwork into a dense visual anthology.
Ephemeral Value
Because Glass House Lane is an unsanctioned, dynamic space, it is fundamentally transient. These layers will eventually be buffed or claimed by the next wave of visiting artists. Documenting the lane captures a distinct, unvarnished chapter in Waterford’s underground visual history—one that exists entirely beyond the margins of the official festival map.
Glass House Lane, Waterford | 13 August 2025
This playful, cartoon-inspired collaboration marks a distinct shift in tone for Glasshouse Lane, highlighting an energetic crew dynamic and a lighthearted approach to urban art.
Artwork Overview & Artists
The Character (Bugs Bunny): The stylised, beanie-wearing Bugs Bunny on the right is the work of Irish graffiti and street artist ADRE (@adre_letters). ADRE is widely recognised across the national scene for his crisp letterforms and subversive, contemporary twists on classic Looney Tunes iconography.
The Background & Tugboat: The abstract graphic forms, floating cloud, and geometric pink-and-blue tugboat on the left were created by Sonny (@sonny_graffiti), signed off with a vibrant green "SONNY" handstyle in the lower corner.
The Style: The mural is an exemplary collaborative cartoon jam. Moving away from somber or photorealistic themes, the artists combine bold pop-art geometry with classic street-character illustration, transforming a standard concrete wall partition into a vibrant visual narrative.
Cataloguing every piece and identifying each artist along Glass House Lane was an exhaustive process. Attribution in underground spaces is notoriously fluid, with conflicting accounts that require careful cross-referencing. For instance, while one mural bearing the tag Novice was locally attributed to an Irish writer, stylistic signatures and records confirm it as the work of the contemporary French visual artist of the same name.
Glass House Lane proved to be an exceptional discovery. Whoever dismissed this alleyway as "poor quality" simply confused the raw, unregulated nature of a communal graffiti wall with a lack of artistic merit.
In reality, the lane preserves a vibrant, authentic tension between international fine-art muralism and grassroots street culture.
The "Off-Grid" Fringe
During the annual Waterford Walls Festival, the official programme operates on a tightly structured framework:
Curated Placement: The festival pairs invited global artists with prominent, large-scale commercial facades.
Formal Approvals: Concept designs require clearance through local council oversight, property owner agreements, and heritage guidelines.
Extensive Logistics: Production relies on heavy machinery, cherry pickers, commercial paint sponsorships, and strict completion windows.
Glass House Lane functions as the festival's spontaneous fringe. It is an open-source, collaborative canvas. Once visiting international artists finish their commissioned multi-storey murals for the day, they head down the lane with their remaining spray cans to join local writers for impromptu paint jams.
Free from commercial briefs, bureaucratic sign-offs, and curatorial guidelines, artists paint side-by-side in pure, unregulated creative freedom.
Technical Breakdown of the Work
The works along the lane represent three distinct disciplines within contemporary urban art:
1. High-Concept Fine Muralism
Taquen: Employs a delicate, overlapping illustrative line technique that demands exceptional spatial discipline when translated onto rough exterior stucco.
Neto Vettorello (The Passage): Uses sophisticated forced perspective and directional lighting to turn a flat alley wall into a deep, three-dimensional architectural portal.
2. Illustrative Textured Realism
Laidback & HMC: Adapted their approach directly to the tactile irregularities of the wall. Laidback’s marine forms and HMC’s barn owls utilise meticulous stippling and cross-hatching, turning coarse masonry into organic shading and depth.
Vial: Monochromatic skulls demonstrate masterclass can control, balancing soft photorealistic fades with sharp subterranean edge-work.
Novice: Introduces a clean, vector-inspired aesthetic, using hard-edged, flat colour-blocking to produce an arresting graphic portrait.
3. Subculture Style-Writing & Character Jams
Rems & Kyser: Precision-driven Wildstyle lettering. Executing balanced interlocking letterforms, crisp outer-glow keylines, and uniform 3D drop-shadows across jagged surfaces demands years of motor discipline and muscle memory.
Staylo, Adre, & Sonny: Energetic character illustration. Staylo’s "sticker pack" arrangement delivers a sharp pop-art subversion of commercial iconography, converting weathered brickwork into a dense visual anthology.
Ephemeral Value
Because Glass House Lane is an unsanctioned, dynamic space, it is fundamentally transient. These layers will eventually be buffed or claimed by the next wave of visiting artists. Documenting the lane captures a distinct, unvarnished chapter in Waterford’s underground visual history—one that exists entirely beyond the margins of the official festival map.
A BUGS BUNNY MURAL