Two Spacer Murals By Shane Sutton Photographed August 2019

• Two Spacer Murals By Shane Sutton
• The Quays by Dan Kitchener
• Dan Kitchener Overpainted His 2015 Mural
• The Unsigned Mural
• The Keepers Mural Is Overpainted
• Finders Keepers Mural From 2017 To 2026
• The Curious Case of the Vanishing Mural
• One Mural Replaced Another
• Mural By Neto Vettorello
• StayLo - The Glass House Lane Series
• Mural By OMIN At Glass House Lane
• Mural By Marie Balbinot From Brazil
• The Solar Eclipse
• About A Girl A Mural By KEMP
• Waterford Walls August 2025
• The Sister Cusack Memorial Plaque
• Temple Bar Is More Than One Pub

ONE OF THE MURALS IS STILL INTACT

THE LEGACY CATALOG

* In The Year 2008 * In The Year 2011 * In The Year 2017 * Henrietta Back In 2010

Two Spacer Murals By Shane Sutton Photographed August 2019

I photographed both examples during my 2019 visit to Waterford and used a Sony A7RIII. The mural at the Fitzwilton Hotel, which I did not like, did not survive but I have recent photographs of the other mural, which is excellent, and I will publish them within a few days.

Shane Sutton’s recurring astronaut persona—known across his body of work simply as the Spacer—has left two distinct visual footprints on Waterford’s streetscape through the annual Waterford Walls International Street Art Festival. While both feature his signature cosmic wanderer, their context, technique, and spatial relationship to their environments offer a sharp contrast in execution.

The Artist & The "Spacer" Motif

• Shane Sutton is a Dublin-based visual artist whose practice spans fine art oil painting, stencil and aerosol street art, and creative digital technologies. His iconic Spacer character originated in a studio painting series titled "That Space In Between", conceptualised around the suspended moments between decision and consequence. Transposed onto the urban canvas, the weightless, reflective astronaut serves as a universal observer—unmarked by gender, age, or identity—navigating terrestrial urban decay and modern architecture alike.

• Sutton’s collaboration with the Waterford Walls Festival provided a high-profile public platform for this character. His contributions helped anchor the festival’s blend of narrative figurative art with dynamic street placements.

Comparing the Two Murals

Bridge Street (Fitzwilton Hotel Site)

• Painted during the 2018 festival run in partnership with Space Week and Blackrock Castle Observatory, this piece was added to the schedule on very short notice.

• Placement & Feel: Located at street level along Bridge Street near the Fitzwilton Hotel, the piece had an undeniably rapid, flat stencil execution.

• Critique: The compressed preparation window is visible in the final result. The figure floats against a relatively plain background without deep tonal integration into the masonry, giving it the quality of a hurried pop-up rather than a site-specific installation.

Slievekeale Road Including The Paint-A-Box Street Art

• Executed for the 2019 festival edition, the Slievekeale Road Spacer is by far the more complete and sophisticated work.

• Urban Camouflage & Utility Box: Its defining brilliance lies in how Sutton tackled street infrastructure. Rather than treating the ground-level utility cabinet as an awkward obstacle to paint around, he incorporated its physical volume directly into the composition. The box becomes an extension of the structural terrain, rendering it practically invisible to passers-by unless viewed from an acute angle.

• Longevity & Finish: With richer gradation in the suit’s folds, deeper shadow rendering, and higher pigment resilience, this piece has stood the test of time, remaining intact and vibrant through August 2026.

At Waterford Walls and across Waterford's urban landscape, street artists frequently encounter street furniture, electrical junction boxes, ESB substations, drainpipes, and bollards. Rather than avoiding these obstacles or leaving awkward negative gaps, artists employ several distinct creative strategies to engage with the city's functional infrastructure:

1. The Anamorphic Camouflage / Physical Continuation

• The technique seen in Shane Sutton’s Slievekeale Road mural is among the most technically demanding. In this approach, the artist uses the three-dimensional surfaces of a utility cabinet as a direct continuation of the 2D background or foreground plane.
• Surface Alignment: Artists project lines, horizons, and gradient shading across the top, front, and sides of the cabinet so that, from a primary street viewing angle, the box effectively disappears into the wall design.
• Structural Blending: Elements like faux brickwork, continuing landscape horizons, or textured shadows wrap seamlessly over metal seams, handles, and hinges.

2. The Functional Object as a Narrative Prop

• Instead of hiding the utility cabinet, several artists treat the box as a physical object interacting with the characters in the artwork.
• Plinths and Pedestals: A painted character might appear to be leaning against, sitting on, or leaping off the top edge of a junction box.
• Mechanical & Industrial Extensions: In sci-fi, steampunk, or mechanical themes, utility boxes, external conduit pipes, and meter housings are painted to resemble generator units, battery packs, or control consoles belonging to the character or scene behind them.

3. "Canvas Wrap" Standalone Interventions

• Alongside large-scale gable murals, initiatives such as the Waterford Cultural Quarter's Thinking Outside the Box (run in conjunction with local regeneration schemes and festival artists) treat freestanding metal utility boxes as self-contained micro-canvases.
• 360-Degree Wraps: Artists design four-sided compositions that encourage pedestrians to walk around the box, utilising bold graphic typography, illustrative wildlife, or abstract pattern work.
• Visual Calming of Clutter: By turning dull grey or green telecom cabinets into colourful standalone pieces, street corners and pedestrian junctions are visually tied into the broader mural trail.

4. Architectural Feature Integration (Pipes, Vents & Cable Runs)

• Large architectural walls across Waterford's older quarters often feature vertical downpipes, soil stacks, air vents, and surface-mounted cabling.
• Foliage and Tendrils: Botanical and organic murals often use downpipes as tree trunks, vines, or stems, allowing painted leaves and flowers to curl around the physical hardware.
• Line Integration: Illustrators and geometric muralists incorporate straight-line piping into geometric grids, wireframe backdrops, or architectural framework lines within the illustration.

The Art And The Artist

1. Spacer – Morrisson's Road, Waterford

• Part of the broader Waterford Walls footprint, this piece features another iteration of the iconic astronaut painted on a residential approach wall.
• Augmented Reality Integration: Selected as part of The Walls Project Digital Arts Programme (in partnership with BEPART), this mural was digitised and animated. Viewers scanning the artwork with an AR app can watch the cosmic scene expand and animate with motion and sound.
• Composition: Painted in a high-contrast style, it anchors the outer residential fringe of Waterford’s open-air mural gallery.

2. Spacer – Island Key, East Wall, Dublin

• Commissioned by Co-operative Housing Ireland (CHI), this prominent mural looks out over the courtyard of the Island Key apartment complex.
• ommunity-Led Design: The concept was developed in collaboration with local residents and unveiled with Dublin civic representatives.
• Interactive AR Layers: Sutton built custom augmented reality filters into the piece, incorporating drawings created by local neighbourhood children that appear when the mural is viewed through a smartphone screen.

3. To Ronnie and Deirdre With Love (Ronnie Drew Tribute) – Eblana Avenue, Dún Laoghaire

• Created for the dlr Anseo street art festival, this piece departs from the Spacer theme to deliver a deeply personal cultural portrait.
• Subject: A tribute to Dubliners frontman Ronnie Drew, positioned around the corner from where Drew attended school on Eblana Avenue.
• Execution: Rendered in Sutton's distinct textured stencil-and-spray portrait technique, celebrating both the folk icon and the personal connection between their families.

4. Always Looking For Trouble (RNLI Tribute) – Dún Laoghaire

• Also executed as part of the dlr Anseo festival programme along the coastal boundary.
• Subject: A dynamic tribute dedicated to the volunteers of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI).
• Styling: Features life-saving crew members navigating heavy seas, rendered with high kinetic energy, sharp lighting, and graphic spray techniques.

5. Brendan Behan & James Joyce – Richmond Cottages North, Summerhill, Dublin 1

• A community-driven public art project painted in collaboration with Summerhill residents.
• Subject: Large-scale portraits of Irish literary figures James Joyce and Brendan Behan.
• Context: Located in Dublin's north inner city, transforming a residential laneway gable wall into a celebrated local landmark.

6. Life Preserver / Festival Piece – High Street, Belfast

• Created for Seedhead Arts' Hit the North street art festival.
• Execution: Sutton took over a plain urban facade near the historic entryways of High Street, bringing his stencil work and figurative street style to Belfast’s contemporary mural quarter.

7. City Fox (Dorset Street Lower / Canal Approach)

• Location: Painted on a prominent building wall at 59 Dorset Street Lower, right along the main thoroughfare approaching the canal crossing.
• Subject & Style: Rather than the sci-fi motif of his Spacer series or literary portraiture, this piece focuses on urban wildlife, capturing one of Dublin’s elusive nocturnal residents—the urban fox.
• Execution: Rendered in high-contrast monochrome and greyscale spray techniques, the piece gives the creature a striking, watchful presence looking out over the busy city traffic.

TWO MURALS BY SHANE SUTTON

Artist Economics: Earnings & Festival Funding

Annual Earnings

International street artists and muralists have highly variable annual incomes depending on their career tier and revenue diversity:

Emerging to Mid-Tier Artists: Typically earn between €25,000 and €55,000 per year, largely combining small festival fees, community commissions, private interior jobs, and print sales.

Established Global Muralists: Generally earn between €60,000 and €150,000+ per year. Their income stems primarily from high-end corporate facades, commercial brand partnerships, gallery canvas sales, limited-edition screenprints, and private architectural commissions.

Revenue Breakdown: Pure street art festivals rarely represent the majority of an artist’s income; instead, they serve as high-profile portfolios that attract lucrative commercial and private clients.

Travel & Accommodation Funding

• For official festival bookings it is standard industry practice for travel, accommodation, and materials to be covered:

• Flights & Transit: Curators typically provide round-trip flights or train travel, along with airport transfers.

• Accommodation & Per Diems: Festivals supply local hotel, guest-house, or artist-residency lodging, alongside a daily stipend (per diem) for meals and local expenses.

• Production & Materials: The host organisation furnishes access equipment (scissor lifts, cherry pickers, scaffolding), primers, aerosol paint, and rollers.

• Artist Fees / Honorariums: Reputable festivals pay an artist honorarium (commonly ranging from €1,000 to €5,000+ per wall, depending on wall square-footage and artist prestige).

In contrast, when artists paint in unsanctioned or fringe spaces like Glass House Lane, work is self-funded—artists use leftover spray cans and personal supplies purely for creative freedom and peer collaboration.

€50,000 per year exempt from Income Tax

Under Irish tax law, the Artists’ Exemption (governed by Section 195 of the Taxes Consolidation Act 1997) permits individuals to earn up to €50,000 per year exempt from Income Tax on profits generated directly from qualifying original and creative works.

Whether this applies to street artists depends on residency status, how the work is legally defined, and how the artist is contracted and paid.

The €50,000 Cap and Statutory Taxes

Income Tax Only: The exemption applies strictly to Income Tax up to the statutory limit of €50,000 per annum. Any creative earnings exceeding €50,000 in a given tax year are taxed at standard marginal rates.

USC and PRSI Still Apply: Earnings are not exempt from the Universal Social Charge (USC) or Pay Related Social Insurance (PRSI).

Residency Requirement: To qualify for a determination from the Revenue Commissioners, the artist must be tax resident (or ordinarily resident and domiciled) in Ireland, the EU/EEA, or the UK. An international artist visiting temporarily on a tourist visa or short trip cannot claim this relief.

Qualifying vs Non-Qualifying Street Art Work

To qualify under the visual arts category, Revenue requires the piece to be an "original and creative work" that possesses "cultural or artistic merit" within the definition of "paintings or other like pictures".

What Typically Qualifies:

Fine-Art Murals and Public Art Commissions: Large-scale original installations and curated festival walls where the artist retains creative freedom and conceptual authorship.

Limited-Edition Fine Art Prints: Signed and numbered print editions (strictly capped at 200 copies) derived from street murals or original artwork.

Studio Canvases and Original Works: Physical paintings and studio pieces sold via private collectors, exhibitions, or gallery representation.

Arts Council Grants and Direct Bursaries: Public funding and stipends awarded specifically to facilitate the production of an original creative work.

What Does Not Qualify:

• Commercial Branding and Advertising: Murals commissioned to promote a corporate brand, commercial product, storefront signage, or marketing campaign.

• Signwriting and Utilitarian Painting: Decorative, trade-based, or functional exterior painting where the primary purpose is civic maintenance or commercial shopfitting.

• Hourly Labour or Tradesperson Rates: Standard day-rate services where an artist works under direction without copyright retention or creative autonomy.

• Commercial Merchandise: Mass-produced apparel, stickers, postcards, non-limited posters, or commercial licensing fees.

The Determination Process and Practical Realities

• Formal Revenue Approval Required: Revenue does not grant automatic tax-exempt status. An artist must submit an application form along with a portfolio, evidence of public exhibition, and testimonials to secure a formal determination for their work.

• Scrutiny on Urban Murals: Outdoor public art and utility-box projects are assessed carefully. Projects classified as purely decorative, functional, or community-maintenance tasks can be refused if they fail to meet the threshold of standalone artistic or cultural merit.

• Payment and Invoicing: The exemption applies only to income received by an individual sole trader directly from the qualifying work. It does not apply to fees billed through a limited company or intermediary production agency.

International Artists

Zabou (France)

• Style & Career: Based in London, Zabou is internationally renowned for her striking, high-contrast figurative realism. She uses spray paint to blend portraits of real, expressive humans with bold color fields and graphic components.
• Key Visuals: Highly detailed portraits featuring dramatic side-lighting and emotional intensity.

VILE (Portugal)

• Style & Career: Rodrigo Miguel (VILE) is famous for his mind-bending 3D transparent/cut-out graffiti technique. Using precise shading, stencil work, and perspective tricks, he renders his name as if it were carved directly through solid concrete walls, revealing the empty background space behind them.

TELMO MIEL (Netherlands)

• Style & Career: The artistic duo Telmo Pieper and Miel Krutzmann are globally celebrated for their large-scale surrealist photo-realism. They fuse layered imagery, overlapping human forms, and dreamlike elements into a single cohesive piece.

MR CENZ (UK)

• Style & Career: A staple of the London street scene since 1988, Mr Cenz creates distinctive futuristic female portraits. His signature aesthetic blends classic graffiti lettering, photorealistic faces, neon hues, and abstract translucent flow-lines.

MR.DHEO (Portugal)

• Style & Career: Self-taught artist known for hyper-realistic narrative portraiture. His work often tackles political commentary, pop culture, and social critique with crisp lines and dramatic contrasts.

Fintan Magee (Australia)

• Style & Career: Frequently referred to as "the Australian Banksy," Magee is a world-class muralist whose work explores social issues, climate change, migration, and the working class.
• Key Visuals: Large, painterly figures rendered with soft light, atmospheric texture, and water reflections.

Dan Kitchener / DANK (UK)

• Style & Career: DANK is legendary for his atmospheric cinematic street scenes, particularly rainy, neon-soaked nightscapes of Tokyo, Hong Kong, and London.
• Key Visuals: Wet pavement reflections, glowing light blurs, and dramatic rain effects rendered with incredible speed using spray paint.

L7MATRIX (France/Brazil)

• Style & Career: Known for combining raw graffiti lettering with fine-art realism. His most famous subjects are hyper-vibrant, exploding birds and animals that seem to dissolve into dynamic splatters, lines, and movement.

Fio Silva (Argentina)

• Style & Career: Dynamic, organic murals featuring wild birds, flora, and fauna. Her style relies on heavy black line work, bold color blocking, and sweeping lines that flow along the architecture of the wall.

DAN FERRER (Spain)

• Style & Career: Ferrer’s work blends figurative realism with allegory and childhood symbolism. He often depicts larger-than-life children breaking through limitations or exploring dream worlds.

CONSE (Spain)

• Style & Career: Master of hyper-realism and portraiture. He focuses heavily on capturing subtle skin textures, deep expressions, and intimate human moments on massive scales.

SPEKER (Italy) & SILYME (Italy)

• Style & Career: Traditional graffiti writers turned muralists who specialize in technical wildstyle lettering, sharp geometric angles, dynamic color gradients, and complex letter construction.

NOL (Netherlands)

• Style & Career: Distinctive for his whimsical, retro-cartoon character designs. NOL uses bold black outlines, playful narrative themes, and bright primary colors.

ADOR (France)

• Style & Career: Illustrative, satirical, and story-driven. ADOR creates imaginary worlds populated by quirky, long-nosed humanoid characters engaged in chaotic or humorous scenarios.

KMG (Scotland)

• Style & Career: Illustrative street artist known for her cheeky, humorous, and bold character-based work that frequently pokes fun at modern society and pop culture.

WRN (Brazil) & MARIE (Brazil)

• Style & Career: Bringing South American tropical street aesthetics, rich patterns, and vibrant color palettes rooted in Brazilian urban culture.

Irish & Northern Irish Artists

DAN LEO (Ireland)

• Style & Career: One of Ireland's most recognizable street artists. Dan Leo's work is characterized by heavy black outlines, sharp geometric partitioning, and vibrant graphic depictions of animals and wildlife.

ROB HILKEN (Northern Ireland)

• Style & Career: Belfast-based artist and curator whose work focuses on geometric abstraction, color field theory, and structural symmetry that interacts with urban architecture.

SHANE HA (Ireland)

• Style & Career: Galway-born visual artist (often signing as Torc_art) whose style blends illustrative geometry, Celtic knotwork elements, and modern pop-surrealist characters.

RASK (Ireland)

• Style & Career: A veteran of the Irish graffiti scene, Rask is renowned for his technical prowess in classic lettering, complex wildstyle, and large-scale collaborative pieces.

SOAK (Ireland)

• Style & Career: Longstanding Irish writer and muralist known for versatile lettering, character design, and heavy involvement in the grassroots national graffiti scene.

STAYLO (Ireland)

• Style & Career: Focuses on contemporary lettering, bold color choices, and clean vector-like spray execution across urban landscapes.

MUL (UK/Ireland)

• Style & Career: Known for the ubiquitous "Heart" and continuous-line characters, MUL focuses on rapid, high-impact graphic iconography that interacts playfully with urban infrastructure.

OMIM (Ireland), NOVICE (Ireland), RO (Ireland), NIALLOL (Ireland), LAIDBACK (Ireland)

• Style & Career: Core contributors to the evolving Irish street art circuit. Their styles range from raw freehand graffiti and calligraffiti to contemporary character-driven compositions.

EMBER (Ireland), KONE (Ireland), KAROL (Ireland), HMC (Ireland), ANDYMC (Ireland)

• Style & Career: Represents a mix of established writers and emerging Irish crews. Expect high-energy lettering, sharp fill-ins, and complex color schemes designed to pop against weather-worn stone and concrete.

Ailbhe Larsen (Ireland)

• Style & Career: Illustrative artist whose work leans toward fine-art storytelling, fine linework, and soft, organic motifs that contrast sharply with raw urban brickwork.

Photographic Field Strategy

• Hyper-Realism & Portraits (Zabou, Conse, Mr.Dheo, Fintan Magee): Photograph these with a mid-to-telephoto focal length (50mm–85mm) to avoid field distortion and preserve exact facial proportions.
• 3D Illusion & Perspective Works (VILE, Telmo Miel): Stand directly at the artist's intended "vanishing point" (usually offset slightly from center) to capture the intended optical depth effect.
• Wide Architectural Gables (Dan Kitchener, Fio Silva): High-resolution wide-angle lenses (15mm–24mm) are essential in Waterford's tighter medieval laneways to capture the full scope of multi-story gable end pieces without perspective clipping.

Railway Stations

* Clontarf Railway Station * Docklands Railway Station * Malahide Railway Station

Examples Of Waterford Walls Murals

• Two Spacer Murals By Shane Sutton
• The Quays by Dan Kitchener
• Dan Kitchener Overpainted His 2015 Mural
• The Unsigned Mural
• The Keepers Mural Is Overpainted
• Finders Keepers Mural From 2017 To 2026
• The Curious Case of the Vanishing Mural
• One Mural Replaced Another
• Mural By Neto Vettorello
• Bugs Bunny Mural By ADRE
• StayLo - Unofficial Mural
• A Really Really Long Mural
• Mural By OMIN
• Mural By Marie Balbinot From Brazil
• Artist At Work
• DeLaSalle Hall Mural By Eoin O'Connor
• Mantra By Torbe36
• Mural By Sonny Sundancer August 2017
• Another Mural By Sonny Sundancer August 2021
• Mural By Dan Leo At 2 Park Road In Waterford
• Mural By Mr Cenz
• Waterford Murals Photographed in July 2018
• Mural By Alex Senna Photographed In August 2025
• A Scribble Grid In Action
• Animalitoland's Mural From 2018 Waterford Walls
• Flowers On The Street By Lula Groce
• Nerone The Artist And His Art On Display In Waterford
• Mural By Laker And Land
• Laura A Mural By Taquen
• The Same But Different By Zabou

Waterford Walls 2025 Locations

Ballybeg Park

• EMIC – 157 Ballybeg Park

Mount Sion Avenue

• KMG – Swans of Lir (No. 85)
• MR. BLOB – Mount Sion Avenue

Stephen Street

• Magda Karol – Stephen Street
• Nickie Harrington – Stephen Street
• Gabriela Joyce – Stephen Street

Thomas Street

• Novice – Thomas Street
• Omin – Thomas Street
• PENS – Thomas Street

O'Connell Street

• Nerone – O'Connell Street

Parnell Street

• Blu Heron – Parnell Street

The Forum Hub

• Kohneshia – The Forum Hub

Multi-Site & Citywide Installations

• Dotmasters – 9 installations across Waterford City
• Blackdoors – 5 installations across Waterford City

Waterford Walls 2024 (10th Anniversary Highlights)

O'Connell Cultural Quarter (O'Connell St / George's St / Gladstone St)

• Aches – Large-scale portrait / chromatic aberration piece (O'Connell St)
• Curtis Hylton – Flora and fauna mural (Gladstone St)
• Curtis Hylton & Shane O'Driscoll – Collaborative installation (George's St)

The Glen / Ballybricken

• Smug One – Photo-realistic character piece (The Glen)
• KinMx – Mythological & botanical figure (Ballybricken)

The Apple Market / Railway Square

• Zurik – Dynamic geometric lettering (Railway Square)
• Dan Leo – Bold graphic wildlife illustration (Apple Market vicinity)

Millers Marsh / Waterside

• Kitsune Jolene – Atmospheric portraiture (Waterside car park)
• French & Mottershead – Site-responsive installation (Millers Marsh)

Waterford Walls 2023 Highlights

New Street / Apple Market

• Rustam Qbic – Surreal narrative mural (New St Car Park)
• Juliette Viode – Figurative piece (Apple Market lane)

O'Connell Street & Cultural Quarter

• Anna Lina – Botanical & nature installation (O'Connell St)
• Street Art Frankey – Playful micro-installations (Various Cultural Quarter spots)

Stephen Street / Mayor's Walk

• Peachzz – Wildlife and floral theme (Mayor's Walk)
• Garreth Joyce – Contemporary graphic mural (Stephen St)

The Mall / Waterfront

• Signs of Power (Amime) – Typographic / lettering mural (The Mall)
• Taquen – Minimalist nature study (Quayside approaches)

Waterford Walls 2022 Highlights

The Glen & Green Street

• Mojo – Contemporary portrait (The Glen)
• Lost Optics – Retro-futuristic abstract patterns (Green St)

Ballybricken

• Sonny Sundancer – Large-scale endangered wildlife mural (Ballybricken Green)
• James Earley – Stained-glass inspired abstraction (Bull Post area)

Barrack Street / Mount Sion

• Mister Copy – Classical figurative study (Barrack St)
• Shane Sutton – Spacer/astronaut series (Mount Sion area)

City Centre & Quays

• Dan Kitchener (DANK) – Rainy night urban cityscape (Quayside)
• Thinker – Abstract graphic mural (The Quay car park wall)