Graffiti style: Athlone youths complete street art workshop

A group of local youths had a chance to channel their inner Banksy when they took part in a six-week street art workshop given by local artist Chris Flicker in Battery Heights this summer.

The workshop was organised by Youth Work Ireland and took place in the Monsignor McCarthy complex for two hours each Tuesday evening.

Chris, who is originally from London, has been living locally since the mid-80s. He's been dabbling in graffiti and street art for most of his life.

Speaking to the Westmeath Independent about the workshop in the Batteries, he said the children, particularly those aged 13 or 14, displayed a good level of enthusiasm for it.

"It was a good community kind of thing, and they were a great bunch of kids to work with," he said. The number of participants could vary from week to week, but in general there were around 15 young people taking part.

"The first question every one of them was asking was 'How did you start? Where did you learn to do this?' And I was telling them that I learned to do it when I was a kid on the street in London.

"I used go around doing street art, or vandalism as it was called at the time! I'm a completely self-taught artist."

As part of the workshop, the walls outside the Monsignor McCarthy complex were brightened up with the addition of eye-catching murals showing children on a bus and the wording 'Athlone Youth Project'.

"I sat down with them to ask them what they wanted to do for the mural and they were telling me about doing excursions where they went off on buses.

"They came up with the idea of showing themselves on a bus, leaving the town behind, and heading out into the country."

Chris has worked on a few murals in the Athlone area - notably a large one of a person drinking coffee at Payne's Lane, behind The Dark Horse pub.

But he believes that Athlone could do more in terms of adding murals to the streetscape.

"Waterford has a street art festival that was on the other week, and they have these huge professional artists from all over the world who come in for it. There's quite a lot of it in Longford as well.

"I have approached a few councillors in the town (with mural ideas) and they've told me it's a brilliant idea, but then I don't hear back from them afterwards.

"Myself and another guy wanted to go around town painting the ESB boxes, just to brighten up the place a bit, but I never heard a word back on that. I don't know if it's red tape, or what it is."

* For more details about Chris Flicker’s artwork, see his Facebook page: ‘Art by Flicker’