Go down the drains

 

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!