Islington is an area in the west end of Toronto – formerly in Etobicoke, and around the intersection of Islington Ave and Dundas St. The “village” is more like a commercial strip along Dundas St west of Islington. There are 20 murals along this stretch of Dundas – and I mean large scale murals.

It appears that all but one of them were created by John Kuna. He and his team have some ability. They can work on a large scale and they can create coherent and even detailed paintings. They are all pretty tame. Colours are muted. These murals are not intended to shock and I don’t think they will offend any passers-by. They all have some kind of historical reference rooted in the area.

It’s quite big project to manage the creating of so many murals. It’s too bad there isn’t a greater variety of expression and more artists represented. I noticed very little tagging on the paintings. Now that is interesting. Is it true there is little tagging over time or does the local Business Improvement area bring out a repair team to paint over tagging and restoring the paintings?

I bet a lot of people have driven by these murals and not realized there was so much public art in such a limited area.