A Russian Graffiti Artist and His Mural Cats in Hong Kong

Vladi is a Hong Kong-based Russian graffiti-artist. He has painted five cats in different places around Hong Kong.

His painting “the Cat in a House,” a large brown and white cat with green eyes nestled snug inside a box, at Tai Mo Shan, has became a popular check-in place for hikers since October.

Vladi’s second cat “the Cat with a Crown,” an orange cat fashioned with a neon crown on the bridge pier in the Ting Kau Village. 

The cat murals are were welcomed by Hongkongers and instantly became an internet hot topic, and the artist was invited to paint another cat on a wall of a new restaurant in Ma Wan. People named it “Ma Wan Cat.”

Later, Vladi also created a fourth cat mural. It is situated beside the stairway outside a restaurant on How Ming Street, Kwun Tong. It has big bright eyes and is adorable as the previous cats. It was named “Kwun Tong Cat.”

Vladi  has a passion for cat painting, he moved on and created the fifth cat “Mong Kok Cat” at Kwong Wing Cafe in Mong Kok on Dec. 14. 

He started at dusk on Dec. 14 and completed it at 6 a.m. on Dec. 15. It took Vladi almost 10 hours to create the artwork, from cleaning the metal door to completing it.

The fifth cat, “Mong Kok cat,” has big eyes and shows a facial expression of surprise, slightly different from the previous artworks.

Vladi  said there was a real cat behind every cat drawing but he draws every cat mural randomly and does not select a cat in advance.

However, the first cat had been vandalized and blocked by the authorities who left a sign saying “government land, no trespassing.” The second cat was whitewashed by government workers who said the area was not safe and might cause a traffic accident. Vladi expressed discouragement on social media and said there would be no more cat pictures.

He thanked Hongkongers for loving his murals.