Penang Street Art

Making strolling through Georgetown’s streets just a little bit more exciting, in 2012 Penang’s municipal council hired London-trained Lithuanian artist, Ernest Zacharevic and charged him with breathing new life into some of the atmospheric Chinese shop-houses around the inner city. An effort to spawn awareness of the rich history of the streets, the project was a success with Zacharevic turning certain areas into thriving tourist destinations that also became the much-talked about object of attention among locals. His artwork is spread out across Penang’s city centre, along roads like Muntri Street, Weld Quay, Lebuh Leith, Armenian Street, Ah Quee Street and more.

Ernest painted seven murals that were inspired by

the surrounding, history and culture of Old Town.

Zacharevic’s street art is pretty impressive: the most widely known is the 20-foot high ‘Little Girl In Blue’, a mural of a young child dressed in ocean blue pyjamas flanked by the two real windows of its ‘canvas’ – a building along Muntri Street. Found just down the road from Eastern & Oriental Hotel, right next to this giant painting is a concentration of brightly-coloured trishaws just waiting to take you to see some of the more obscure artwork around Georgetown. Prices start at about RM80 for a one-hour ride but you can whittle it down to a mere RM40 for a 30-minute journey.