Some art galleries are now outdoors and sometimes the artist is finding a home at street level.

But in other cases, the artistic venue towers above the street.

Allan Ryan needs to get a lift to work. 

In his case, a scaffold lifts him along a six- storey brick wall that he is slowly transforming from colorless to colorful.

"More and more people are interesting in painting murals and there seems to be a like a renaissance for it," Ryan said. "It's like that kind of period in time and I think people are looking at blank walls and saying we could re-imagine this. We could do something here."

That same artistic impulse is driving other street artists, like Hula, who returned to Saint John this summer to create while competing with the Fundy tide.

At the corner of Portland and Victoria Streets in Dartmouth, a neon mural, which was the creation of two Philadephia-based artists, was unveiled last week.

Though not all street art is welcomed at street level.

Doug Carleton's 3D crosswalk in Dartmouth was supposed to enhance the neighbourhood, but it didn't comply with traditional standards for traffic control devices so its future is up in the air.

So far, Ryan is getting a positive reaction in the uptown.

"He's very friendly and he's just so happy to be in Saint John," said Saint John resident Donna Vogel, who lives in the neighbourhood where Ryan is painting his mural. "I'm happy to have him as a neighbour for a couple of weeks. It's great."

Ryan is originally from Cape Breton, though in recent years, his has become a household name in one neighbourhood of Toronto where he's known as Uber 5000.      In graffiti alley, some of his work has a distinct, Maritime flavour.

"People like to look at beautiful, interesting things and so in Saint John we are very much blessed with the architecture we have here, and that is beautiful to look at," said tour operator Gillianne Nadeau. "We have some building walls that are a little rough."

But one wall is changing, from rough, to eye-popping.

"I just like that some people will be surprised by it," said Ryan. "You know, they won't be expecting it.  And they'll turn around and have an interaction with it and take a look and take away from it what they will."

When the mural is finished, there is certainly no shortage of raw material for the next artist to take on.

So, it's become a summer of street art in Saint John.

A few days after Hula finished his waterfront project, Uber 5000 started on that wall in the uptown.

He is going to be at work on that wall for approximately 10 more days, so there is lots of time to go down to Grannan Lane and watch him at work.

With files from CTV Atlantic's Mike Cameron.