Young artists hold spray paint and paintbrushes, turning the gray cement walls into art galleries - in front of the cyberpunk graffiti wall in Beijing's 798 Art District, young people waiting to take photos line up in a hundred meter long queue; The live stream of ink painting on the Kuanzhai Alley in Chengdu has exceeded one million viewers in real-time. In recent years, a spontaneous Citywalk has become a new way of "deep tourism", and "no check-in, no city" has become a hot topic in various cultural and tourism tracks. During the May Day holiday in 2025, thousands of "check-in walls" across the country were marked on social media by enthusiastic netizens. This not only formed a new community of "wall painting IP" in the online trendy gaming track, but also opened up a new trend of "wall painting landmarks" in the offline cultural and tourism market. Wall painting, also known as wall painting or wall painting, is a modern decorative art that originated from the mural matrix. However, today's wall painting art has developed a unique "personality" that is different from traditional murals: firstly, it has moved towards popular culture, with content mostly consisting of "folk dramas" that are popular among the people; Secondly, there is a shift towards the etiquette and customs of street culture, placing folk culture in the dynamic scene of public life. The rise of the "wall painting check-in craze" is driven by various factors. One is the symbol transformation of mural text. As an art form in public spaces, wall painting has strong visual symbolic properties. The increasingly diverse visual symbols have a huge appeal to young people. Ancient Chinese wall paintings, represented by "Dunhuang murals" and "palace murals", have formed a large number of Buddha statue paintings, sutra paintings, human portraits, decorative paintings, and story paintings. The drawing content includes sacrificial ceremonies, hunting, dance, etc. The patterns are themed around characters, animals, and gods, and the colors mainly use stone green and stone green to create a solemn and dignified visual effect, creating a natural sense of distance from the common people. Since modern times, wall paintings have begun to appear on the streets and alleys during the process of sinking, and some contemporary advertisements, propaganda slogans, street art, and other forms have emerged. Although wall paintings during this period had a strong visual impact, they generally lacked aesthetic appeal. In recent years, the trend of wall painting check-in has given rise to a new creative ecosystem, with bolder innovation and richer content in wall painting. Common wall paintings include: minimalist modern art represented by simple lines or color block compositions, cartoon illustrations represented by cartoon images and ancient style illustrations, traditional art represented by landscape painting and traditional Chinese painting, realistic landscape art represented by 3D three-dimensional architecture and animals, and creative graffiti represented by starry sky spraying. The popularity of social media has made young people more accustomed to expressing their personality, values, or social attitudes through symbolic behavior. The reason why modern wall painting is popular among young people is largely because they can express their social concerns through the path of wall painting. The wall painting of the "Symphony of Garbage Classification" in a community in Shanghai uses a cartoonized image of garbage to construct a visual language, greatly improving the efficiency of spreading environmental protection concepts. This practice of transforming public affairs into artistic discourse highlights the unique path for the younger generation to participate in social governance. The second is artistic practice with the participation of the whole nation. In the era of social media, young people are more inclined to build social resources through "proof of presence" (such as creation, clocking in, taking photos). According to data from short video platforms, the topic of "Wall Painting Challenge" has been viewed billions of times, with amateur created videos accounting for nearly half. The "Ten Thousand Handprint Wall" by the Hangzhou Grand Canal has collected collective art works created by citizens' handprints, with a retention rate of over 90% among participants. This creative model dissolves the authoritative threshold of artistic creation. The "postgraduate entrance examination calendar" created by students from a certain university in Chongqing using chalk on the campus wall attracts more than 300 people to participate in the drawing every day, achieving nationwide co creation. In the "Sound Graffiti" project at Taikoo Li in Chengdu, viewers can convert voice messages into visual elements projected onto the wall through a mobile app. This interactive mode shifts public art from one-way dissemination to dialogue construction. The third is the emotional reconstruction of public spaces. Wall painting intervenes in public spaces through art, transforming cold buildings into emotional carriers (such as environmental themed murals, nostalgic graffiti, anime characters), and eliciting resonance. The pursuit of wall painting by people is essentially about reshaping public spaces through art and expressing a vision for urban renewal. The "Memory Map" wall painting of Nantou Ancient City in Shenzhen uses augmented reality technology to recreate the century old changes in the neighborhood, greatly enhancing the cultural identity of local residents. This artistic presentation of temporal and spatial folding provides an emotional solution for urban renewal. A follow-up survey shows that community residents who participate in wall painting creation have significantly increased their support for the renovation of old cities. In front of the "retro advertising wall" of Wenheyou in Changsha, there are 327 social interactions with strangers every day, and the artistic catalyst has given birth to new temporary social spaces. Currently, the rapid development of public infrastructure in China provides unprecedented opportunities for the growth of wall painting art. The village residences, school buildings, parks, squares and other public spaces decorated with wall paintings have undergone a new look in urban and rural construction, gradually integrating with urban planning, rural revitalization, and community building. With the strong winds of cultural heritage revitalization and cultural tourism prosperity, such as "Red Classics," "Memories of Time," "Food Maps," and "Dialect Fun," wall painting art quickly connects the "local" genes across the country, allowing the silent blue brick and stone walls to begin telling Chinese stories: Chinese local superheroes such as Wukong and Nezha have replaced foreign IPs such as Totoro and Hokage, witnessing the strong breakthrough of Chinese classic cultural prototypes in "Japanese idols" and "American idols; The traditional Chinese painting language, such as line drawing, boneless painting, texturing and dyeing, has gradually infiltrated into the wall texture, making the wall painting language get rid of the "scar" texture of spray graffiti on the street, and really enter the aesthetic realm of "wall reading". Of course, when wall painting art emerges, we should also be wary of simply seeking attention and gaining traffic. Blindly following the trend and copying visually can easily weaken the local characteristics of wall painting art, and the increasingly prevalent commercial elements are also eroding the approachable nature of public spaces, making it impossible for the aesthetic education function of wall painting art to be fully realized. Fortunately, the art of wall painting, which is currently dedicated to the "micro renewal" of urban governance, has been increasingly valued in the process of sinking from temples and art galleries to streets, alleys, and villages, gradually becoming an active cultural and tourism landscape outside of museums, art galleries, and cultural centers. Wall painting beautifies public spaces, reflecting the new generation's complex pursuit of self-expression, public participation, and aesthetic experience. It is both a cultural phenomenon and a reflection of social mentality. When the cold concrete is transformed into an emotional canvas, when the streets and alleys rise to become fields of thought, what we witness is not only the iteration of art forms, but also the development and renewal of the face of contemporary life. (New Society)