Newtown area graffiti and street art
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[edit] Introduction
Since the 1980s the area in and around the historic inner Sydney suburb of Newtown, NSW -- including the suburbs of Newtown, Enmore, Erskineville, Camperdown and St Peters -- has become well known for the many works of creative graffiti and "street art" that adorn local walls. Among these works were several large, visually striking murals.
The largest, most prominent and best known of these works is the "Dream" mural on King St, near the intersection of King and Wilson Sts, which occupies the entire northern wall of a large row building which faces onto the so-called "Telstra Square". Created in the early 1990s, this very large mural -- which features a portrait of Dr Martin Luther King, Jr -- is now one of the few remaining large-scale figurative murals in the area.
Although such murals and graffiti art works have played a significant role in shaping the character and image of the Newtown area, such works are by nature ephemeral, and this "collection" is constantly changing. While a few examples like the "Dream" mural have endured for a decade or more, many have vanished in recent years and it is not common for new, smaller works to remain only for a few weeks, days or in some cases even a few hours.
Some of the most prominent works, dating from the early 1990s, have recently been removed as urban re-redevelopment and the gentrification of the Newtown area has accelerated in line with increasing property values. Conservatively-minded new owners have removed several of the msot prominent works of "street art" when they purchased properties in the area; others works have been painted over or removed during commercial redevelopment or obscured by later construction, while many other works have simply been covered over with more recent work by other graffiti artists.
The purpose of this article is to expand on the summary of this subject in Wikipedia's main article on Newtown, NSW, to provide a guide to some of the most notable works of street art in this area, to record for posterity images of current works and works that have now disappeared, as well as providing links to other sites with images of graffiti and street art of the Newtown area. It is hoped that other contributors with photographs of now-erased murals, slogans and graffiti will be encouraged to contribute their images to this article to build up a fuller survey of the history and development of street art in the greater Newtown area.
[edit] Newtown street art, 1980s-present
The most prominent works of street art in the Newtown area are the large murals created in the late 1980s and early 1990s, which were painted on the walls of houses and shops in the Newtown-Erskineville area. Graffiti of all kinds can be found and spray-painted "tags" have proliferated all over the area for many years, although more recently new and much more elaborate style of tagging have developed.
One notable location for political and personal graffiti is the long sandstone wall surrounding St Stephen's Church in Newtown. Although most of the material there is relatively recent, some examples have survived for many years. One piece of brush-painted graffiti -- which can be reliably dated to the mid-1970s and which is still partially visible -- is the political slogan, "Is Fraser controlling your bowels?" (a reference to controversial 1970s Liberal Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser); a photograph of this slogan features in a book on Australian graffiti by photographer Rennie Ellis, published in 1976. Another venerable handpainted graffito on this wall, thought to be of a similar age, proclaims "Patriarchy creates destruction".
Another well-known piece of local graffiti which was extant for about ten years from the mid-1980s, was located on a shop wall in Missenden Road, just off King St. Dedicated to popular local rock band The Sunnyboys, it read: "From the bottom of our hearts, we loves ya, Sunnys".
Another celebrated but shortlived act of "street art" which took place ca. 1990 was a prank by two young students who painted most of Macdonaldtown Station bright pink.
The biggest, most prominent and best known of the Newtown murals is the "I have a dream" mural, which is dedicated to American civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., and which also links Dr King with the campaign for civil rights for Aboriginal Australians. It is located on the wall of a three-storey terrace building on the western side of King St, near Newtown Post Office, opposite the Newtown Gym and the Thai Pothong restaurant. It is also now one of the last surviving large-format murals in the area. It features a large portrait of Dr King, next to a large painted rendition of the well-known Apollo 8 photograph of the Earth from space, and Dr King's famous quote "I have a dream" in large Gothic lettering. The lower part of the mural merges into a large representation of the Aboriginal flag and in the bottom left hand corner is a quotation from Genesis 37:19:
- "Behold the dreamer cometh; Come now therefore and let us slay him, and we shall see what will become of his dreams"
A number of other large murals, believed to have been executed by the same group of artists in late 1980s and early 1990s, have been removed or painted over in recent years. They include several large murals painted on buildings along or near Erskineville Road.
For many years from a strip of land along both sides of this road, extending east from King St, was resumed by the NSW Department of Main Roads as part of a plan to build a large arterial road through the area. This scheme was eventually abandoned after the imposition of Green Bans by the Builders Labourers Federation, which effectively stopped all work on the planned road, although a number of shops and houses along the street were demolished in the 1970s and early 1980s. This struggle is now commemorated by Green Bans Park on Erskineville Rd, created on land formerly occupied by buildings demolished to make way for the proposed road.
Other well-known large murals in the Newtown area are:
- the spectacular "Great Wave" mural in Gowrie St, Newtown. Created in 2000, it features a striking combination of elaborate 'tag'-type designs and pictorial images on a Japanese theme, including a huge image of a breaking wave rendered in the style of the famous Hokusai woodcut "Behind the Great Wave at Kanagawa"
- the "Three Proud People" mural, which faces the railway near Macdonaldtown Station. Created ca. 2000, this mural is a reproduction of the famous photo taken at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, when black American athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos created a major controversy by wearing black gloves and giving the "Black Power" salute during their medal award ceremony. The third person in the image was Australian athlete Peter Norman, who died in 2006, and the mural became the subject of significant media coverage at the time of Norman's death. The view of this mural from the railway has recently been greatly reduced by a large concrete barrier erected along the western side of the railway line between Newtown and Macdonaldtwon stations
- a large mural depicting the cartoon character Felix the Cat, painted on the side of a house near the intersection of Erskineville Road and Wilson St. This was painted over in the late 1990s and the wall was subsequently obscured by the construction of a large block of apartments
- the Miles Davis mural ("On the wings of song"), painted on the side of a house on Erskineville Road, near the railway line, which depicted jazz musician Miles Davis playing his trumpet, with a rainbow design with music notes flowing out from the bell of his instrument. This mural was painted over in the early 2000s.
- a mural dedicated to John Coltrane, similar in style to the Miles Davis mural but much smaller in size, which was painted on the wall a now-defunct laundry business located on the corner of King St and Egan St. This mural was removed ca. 2002
- the "map of Africa" mural in King St. Originally painted in the early 1990s, this large mural occupies the entire outer wall of an African restaurant adjacent to the Commonwealth Bank. The first version was reproduced from an old map printed by the Australian firm Chas. Scally & Co., probably dating from the 1960s. The current version, painted in the early 2000s, reflects the major changes in African political geography in the late 1900s
- the "Herald" mural in northern King St, next door to the site of the former Alex Cordobes Pizza shop. This large mural (still extant in Dec. 2006), evidently painted from a projected transparency, is an enlarged reproduction of the top section of the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald of Friday 10 July 1992.
- the multiple mural images painted on the outside of the former Newtown Police Citizens Youth Club on Erskineville Rd. This work includes several panels of pictures and text, including images of the TV characters Sonny Hammond and Skippy, from the 1960s Australian TV series Skippy the Bush Kangaroo, an image of Mr Spock from Star Trek, a stock image of two laughing European peasant women, and a reproduction of a photograph of Sallie-Anne Huckstepp. These images were still extant in early 2007, although the building has been unused for a number of years and was recently damaged by fire.
- the well-known and much-loved "Marcia Brady" mural on Erskineville Road, opposite the renowned Imperial Hotel. This striking image featured a portrait of the TV character Marcia Brady from The Brady Bunch, brandishing an automatic pistol. The character is painted as if bursting through the shattering glass of a TV screen, whilst the TV itself is painted in a trompe l'oeil effect, apparently breaking through the brick wall of the house on which the mural is painted. The power switch and power cord and plug of the TV were applied objects made from plastic. Regrettably, this remarkable mural, which had been in place since 1993, was removed in December 2006.
Although most of the large murals from the 1990s have been removed over the last few years, there has recently been an upsurge of new 'public art' in the area. A number of vividly coloured Maya-inspired spraypaint designs appeared on walls around Camperdown Memorial Park during 2005-2006, although the best of these have since been removed or painted over with other designs. A spraypaint portrait of Jimi Hendrix, created ca. 2005, was painted on the side of an electrical transformer enclosure located at the eastern edge of the park, near the Courthouse Hotel, but this was painted over some time during 2006
[edit] Stencil graffiti
In the last few years there has been a rapid proliferation of stencil graffiti around Newtown, with dozens of designs appearing on walls in the area during 2005-2006. This development reflects the growing popularity of this style in many international cities, and particularly in Melbourne, Victoria.
The most notable location in the Newtown area is the rear wall of a property in Gladstone St, Newtown, on which the owners permit any graffiti to be applied as long as it is stencil art. During 2006 several dozen stencil designs of all shapes and sizes have been apllied, and the collection continues to grow.
[edit] See also
- Newtown, NSW
- Graffiti
- Types of graffiti
- List of graffiti artists
- Category:Graffiti artists
- Graffiti terminology
- Zoo York
- Freedom Tunnel (Manhattan)
- Spray paint art
- 12oz Prophet - an online graffiti-related magazine
- Marc Ecko's Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure
