This summer, Waterford once again became a living canvas as Ireland’s largest street art festival, Waterford Walls brought colour and energy to the city. Colourtrend has proudly supported Waterford Walls since it began twelve years ago. The festival has grown into one of the highlights of Ireland’s summer calendar, with more than fifty artists arriving in Waterford to transform buildings, laneways and streets into large-scale works of art. The project has been vital for Waterford, adding a new sense of pride in the community, while the art itself has helped to revive overlooked areas of the city. This year, Festival Curator, Gabe McGuinness received over 1,000 submissions from artists looking to take part. A clear indicator of the success of the festival, and a sign of its growing impact.
Colourtrend has been proud to support Waterford Walls from the very beginning. It’s a partnership that just makes sense. We understand how colour can transform a space and change the way we feel. Every drop of masonry paint used at Waterford Walls is Colourtrend Weather, supplied with the help of Cove & Co. Waterford. This year, the team tinted and supplied approximately 600 litres of Colourtrend Weather for the festival, helping artists create murals that will brighten up the city. Walking through Waterford, spotting our dark blue tins beside works in progress, was a brilliant reminder of what paint can do in the right hands.
Photography by DMG Photography
For artists, Colourtrend Weather allows them to get the exact shade they need in a quality paint that will last for years. We love to see the longevity of the pieces and how our paint holds up after five-ten years exposed to Waterford’s coastal climate. Waterford Walls try to change each wall after five years to keep the artwork feeling fresh, but some murals have been around for longer.
We spent time onsite during this year’s festival, meeting organisers and catching up with some of the artists as their murals took shape. The atmosphere was exactly what you want from a street art festival: good vibes, artists, sunshine, colour, ladders, cherry pickers, paint, spray paint. Artists including Fintan Magee, Fio Silva and Aurora Campbell used Colourtrend Weather to bring new life, texture and energy to walls around Waterford. We spoke to them about the festival, their process and how our exterior paint performed at scale.
Fintan Magee, the highly regarded mural artist from New South Wales, Australia, returned to Waterford to paint over a mural he created for the festival back in 2017. That original piece was also painted with Colourtrend Weather and, according to Fintan, was “still in really good condition” years later. His new blue-toned mural features two male figures and explores male friendship. For an artist working at this scale, in an Irish climate, exterior paint has to hold up to wind, weather and time. Colourtrend Weather was made for exactly that.
In Waterford’s Cultural Quarter, we met Fio Silva as she worked on a vast mural of birds in flight across the front of a building on O’Connell Street. Originally from Buenos Aires, Fio often brings birds and natural forms into her work, and this piece carries that same sense of movement and freedom. Her palette brought vibrant blues, oranges and reds into the cityscape, with Colourtrend Weather delivering smooth blending and strong, true-to-colour pigment. Fio also noted that she needed fewer layers than usual, thanks to the vibrancy and coverage of the paint.
Aurora Campbell brought her signature botanical style to Waterford with a bold orange and purple mural that wraps an entire building in colour. Originally from Melbourne, Aurora works with strong, expressive shades, so consistency and accuracy were essential. She spoke about the value of having the right colours mixed for her mural, and how the support from Cove & Co. and Colourtrend helped bring her vision to the wall exactly as intended.
Twelve years on, Waterford Walls continues to show what’s possible when art is used to transform a space and a community. It turns walls into landmarks and gives the city a gift that will last long after the festival ends. For Colourtrend, supporting Waterford Walls is about collaboration and community. It’s a chance for our paint to make a real difference where colour matters most.
Written by Niamh Tumbleton.