Heathmont

Fresh Pieces from the Belgrave Line. 

5 years of wall evolution, Ringwood, Melbourne

Graffiti walls all around the world are changing constantly. It's interesting to watch the evolution of the wall and the influences of the change. 

30.1.13

Here you see a cheap half done orange buff re-paint to cover previous graffiti. People have noticed this and preferred to go with the throw-up over the top. Cover maximum area with minimum paint.

24.8.13

Shortly after with no buffing people stop throw-ups and start painting pieces. This goes on for 4 years to 2018. Nost tag out of his traditional painting range of inner suburbs and south-east.

24.6.14

24.11.15

Old school writer Cruze, CW, MOS, WCA. Foebia piece shows a more 90's style where the outlines cut into the lettering. Similar style to Prizna also from CW.

10.1.17

Clean, public style

24.12.17

A unorthodox style by Krems from GH

Every wall shot up until now has showcased at least two main writers. Here Krems from GH makes a bold statement and uses the whole wall.

Belgrave's Graffiti History

Graffiti as a general rule of thumb becomes “more improved and diverse closer to the city.” So often in the outer suburbs you have high ratio of tags to pieces. But Belgrave’s different it’s an exception. It’s also one of the few well established outer-suburbs on the end of the line. So unlike new end of line stations South Morang, Craigeburn or even Pakenham; Belgrave’s graffiti scene stretches back several decades. Modern day graffiti (aerosol art) began in Melbourne around 1983 with the popularization of graffiti exported through American productions most notably “Style Wars.” Belgrave wasn’t far behind with the establishment of local crew PBP in 1989.

Belgrave has transformed through a recent and distinctive bohemian change. In 2013 Belgrave Regional Action Group whitewashed blacksmiths way (lane behind shops). Painting over all the graffiti eliminating the history on the walls. This was an immature response based on a misguided understanding of the subculture. The wall directly above the train station walkway was specifically targeted due to its high profile nature (as seen Sam Dunn Blog post 21st September 2008 http://crdunn.blogspot.com.au/2008_09_01_archive.html). Afterwards the wall was commissioned by a local artist. The work (if it could be called that) looked like the artist ingested a palette of colours and regurgitated them onto the wall. The completed work was exceptionally distasteful. Where you have poor quality commissioned art, graffiti will follow.

 November 2012

 October 2013

This series of photos shows the evolution of a graffiti wall originally from tags, to buffed wall, to commissioned work, to tags, which developed into throw-ups and then a commission by respected graffiti artist Dvate repping SDM crew.   

 October 2015

Its unfortunate the commission work came at this time. The walls was developing steadily. However no one in their right mind would argue the platypus was worse than the previous commission. It is an exceptionally accurate piece of art, and very relevant to the local community. The End of the Line festival has been instrumental in dragging Belgrave's urban art scene into the 21st century. Many high profile graffiti artists have diverged to this little town to paint the walls. 

November 2015 (existing)

Camberwell's concrete valley of graff

Ringwood Empty

Been meaning to get this joint for ages.... You can see it from the train line slowly ageing from casual vandalism. I thought the property was sold a while ago and yet it still remains. I don't think the owners are interested in keeping it. The house will probably be demolished and new units built. watch this space! Its a sign of the times for Ringwood which is becoming increasingly urbanized. A huge multi-story Costco opened in 2013 and the train station is undergoing a major transformation as we speak.

Abandoned houses tend to accumulate shit from transient squatters

Surprisingly low amount of graffiti  

 Built in veranda or just a sunroom

Looking for copper

At least the junkies left the needles in pile

Seth Sentry's "Room for rent"

the couch surfers room

someone wanted to cut the bed in two?

outstanding view of the porch

Belgrave Line Beef

Cevor and Sider have started a battle around the Belgrave-Lilydale train lines. Cevor deliberately wrote over one of Sider's most prominent pieces and said "You wanted it." Since this happened many of cevor's pieces have been capped in retaliation, including at Croydon, Ferntree Gully and Upwey train stations.

Get Hectic in Box Hill

Wanna play tag?

Urban spaces are designed to look ugly, kept simple and made functional in a way........ if you want everybody in society to be a slave to the economy. What happened to rest and relaxation, our lives are based on productivity. Every fucking day we're told we aren't spending enough. The system in which we live is designed for us to work our arse's off with little reward. We all get sucked into this capitalistic system which doesn't work and operates only because we let it. Graffiti is part of a number of avenues in this world to culture jam society and take a non conformist approach. Don't feel obliged to follow this apathetic, self centered, me me me way of life. Cities make us think that we are the most important species on planet. Oh look what we built, but humans have next to nothing to be proud of. Australians live in a nation which supports freedom of speech but only if you tell them what they want to hear. If you build a dull city, people are inspired to change their community and make it beautiful. Every bodies interpretation of beautiful is different. I hate most things about human civilization and cities suck and drain resources from all around them to make what we think is progress. But this is the society we have and as homo saipens we are social animals and live and communicate together. That's also not to forget cities are places of concepts, and are gradually changing and experimenting with new dynamic ideas and thoughts. This is mostly why graffiti proliferates in urban areas. A city without graffiti would be bland totalitarian piece of shit 

These photo's make many people think, "well haven't they got something better to do?" You mean take a selfie, update their facebook status, post something on twit-head or watch mind-numbing TV. These walls speak out on behalf of the youths of today, graffiti is just a way for them to channelize their anger about this disjointed society.

Utopian

Its a rare sight to see soft, feminine illustrations in the macho dominated graffiti culture. These characters depict the stereotypical thoughts of a  young, Western girl "I want a pony" or better "a unicorn". Its often refreshing to see work challenging the notion of traditional graffiti (where you have a name and you tag it to mark your territory). This work is different.... humble maybe where the artist remains anonymous with no signature attached.      

 Women represent a minority in "the industry" and many are more accustomed to street art where there is less competition and art is produced for the people, rather than graffiti being for graffiti artists. Strictly speaking this piece is graffiti with a contextual element of street art. The work utilizes the cooler, calm, colours of blues and green. The horse and unicorn have a sense of child-like, care-free joy!

The Crew

Most graffiti artists are part of a crew, some are solo artists. RTD graff crew from Melbourne's Eastern suburbs are one of the more notorious crews.   

Surrey Hills

Bayswater

 Hawthorn

PBP, RBK, KCD

Ferntree Gully, Victoria

Bayswater Graffiti Wall timelaspe