Welcome to St Kilda

At the end of the tram line lies St Kilda. There sits a cultural hub of arts including iconic venues Luna Park, the Palais, the Epsy and is even home to Australia's largest free music festival. It provides an alternative culture like everywhere else in the inner-suburbs being consumed by gentrification. Here we find a rich deep history of graffiti that appears scattered through the streets. Despite the lack of train line and station St Kilda is a hub of graffiti and street art. 

 

WCA stomper

 Revisiting iconic WCA stomper on the Hursty Line in Alphington

Melbourne Old Schooler

WCA Stomper

WCA 20 year anniversary wall

Oakleigh-thows

 

Newcastle Freights

Artwork from New South Wales third biggest city. Newcastle is a industrial town claiming the world's largest coal port. Abundant coal made prime position for BHP establishing steelworks that dominated the local economy until its closure in 1999. What's left, well an town that has a history of infrastructure embedded in the prosperity coal. As most countries in the world shift away from fossil fuels a diversified future comes with certainty. The transport of coal to Newcastle plays backdrop to the city as it dominates the city landscape with this bleak dystopian undercurrent. 

Trains have always been prized as the top spot to display a piece. Passenger trains are the ultimate steel canvas. Whatever runs on metro trains gets buffed and cleaned quick, whereas freight train pieces often run for years. 

 

Out and about in Dandenong South

Graffiti is a product of its environment. Where it appears and disappears is relative to public and corporate sentiment. Industrial walls are the backbone of the graffiti scene. Usually scattered in middle and outer suburbs of most cities adjacent to a reserve or a creek. These walls mark the edge of land that defines productive and unutilised lands. In the middle this dead space exists. Here we find the concrete walls nestled and hidden in suburbia. It's one of the last acceptable spaces where graffiti can exist. Almost everywhere else it it battles and competes for space to some extent. Out of sight but not out of mind for the graffiti artist. 

Until you facilitate chill spaces to paint, expect tags and throw-ups to proliferate. Those are quick ways to get up in a society driven by the buff. That's why industrial back walls are essential to the scene. They provide time and space needed to produce burners. 

fresh pieces by SDM crew

Prix-AFP constantly redefining letterform with a unique abstract take. Some artists just flat out wash, rinse, repeat on style, Prix doesn't. Others push the boundaries. Always altering, adjusting, concocting new styles. The more stripped back and simple the harder it gets.

 

16th best art blog in Australia

16th best art blog in Australia!

Byron Bay

Bryon Bay is possibly Australia's most cliched town. It promotes itself as a progressive alternative laid back destination. Upon entry you greeted with the "Welcome to Bryon Bay, cheer up, slow down and chillout" sign. Which is a total joke, given you need spare 2.8 million dollars just to reach the median house price. This hype town is guarded fiercely with exclusivity. Its symbolic of the growing divide wedging the working class in Australia. Go no further to find the housing crisis, a classic situation replicated throughout coastal regional towns. The same issue found when searching for rentals in places like the Surf Coast in Victoria. Bryon maintains a larger than life status catering primarily to visitors, with a small population nudging 6,000 people. Everyone in Australia knows about Bryon even if they've never been. It's long departed from its counter-culture roots transformed from a sleepy surf village. The rich and famous of Bryon in 2025 chase clout as the modern form of currency. 

Bryon Pay

Source

   

But now to the graffiti and street art culture. There is potentially no other town in Australia quite like it. Small towns of this size rarely have a graffiti scene or culture. However Bryon's different. Despite the few privileged multi-millionaire residents it still pulls creative types as travellers. It's known as a hub for arts and music. Graffiti seeps through the town on back walls and onto industrial buildings. Comparable towns elsewhere in Australia might have a few scruffy tags on a back-alley way or a mural on a silo if they're lucky. Bryon however, holds its own and fortunately the scene remains organic and not over-run with street art murals.  

Sitting on the highpoint in the landscape the Bryon Bay water tank is a prominent standout feature. The tank was originally painted Ian Walker in 1989. For three days a week for a whole year he painted the water tank. It contains the depiction of Bryon Bay through many elements of coastal lifestyle and history with quirky character. 

Sofles

Getnup known for reaching up to paint blockbuster rollies

 

Original mural

Water tank in 2007

now