Bike repairs and some painting around ville st Henri chilly day

It is one of those scenes we have rode past on our bikes a million times, today I had the chance to paint it while my bike was in the shop nearby getting some much needed repairs. The statue shows a weight lifter, from Walkmontreal.com: “Monument à Louis Cyr, created in 1970 by the artist Robert Pelletier, assisted by Petrucci and Carli. Made of bronze and granite, it was inaugurated on June 13th, 1973. It is located in Parc des Hommes-Forts." 

In the background, there is a four story high mural of an indigenous woman holding a card up to her right eye saying that "White Supremacy is Killing Me." The rest of the park was covered with a layer of fresh snow that came down last night. The weather was deceptively miserable today with a cold strong wind and mostly overcast. According to the Globe and Mail, "The mural was created by Jessica Sobagal, as part of Unceded Voices, a collective of female street artists of aboriginal descent and of colour."

The mural has been defaced on at least three occasions, that is, vandals threw paint all over it and scrawled racist messages... which just proves the point of the mural. The juxtaposition of the statue, showing a white colonial era body builder next to the social justice mural was quite the cultural overload for one day!

Parc des Hommes-Forts, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, March 2025 (No. 4191a)

Less controversial, here is an interesting tree with a graffiti wall behind it. You see the classic angled roof on the top of the building with little A-frame windows popping out the front. That would be to prevent snow from collapsing the roof, and to give an extra living space on the fourth floor.

Tree and graffiti, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, March 2025 (No. 4279b)

 

This collection of buildings was buried in snow, and another interesting tree adorned the background sky. I think the foreground building, which was a single story L-shape, was some kind of auto shop, while the background must have been a hotel or something in the old days, now it seemed to be borded up or unoccupied maybe. You never know when these properties get leveled and replaced with a boring cube condo, so I decided to paint it for posterity. It was a real teeth clincher today with the weather.

Collection of buildings with snow, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, March 2025 (No. 4192)