Newtown area graffiti and street art
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[edit] Introduction
Since at least the 1980s, the area 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 have been placed on local walls.
These works range across many styles and methods of execution. They include a number of visually striking large-scale murals, hand-painted political slogans, hand-painted figurative designs, spray-painted semi-abstract designs, and recent stylistic developments such as stencil art and poster graffiti (also known as "wheatpasting").
Notable "street art" styles and locations in the greater Newtown area include:
- the numerous murals facing onto King St and adjoining streets
- the growing collection of stencil art around the photographic studio in Gladstone St, near Newtown Railway Station
- the numerous stencils, slogans and murals in and around the pedestrian tunnel under the railway line, linking Bella St and Bedford St
- the numerous and varied graffiti works in the area between Enmore Rd and the railway line, including Gladstone St, the Wilford St industrial area, Wilford Lane, Phillip Lane and Thurnby Lane
- the wide variety of murals, stencils and graffiti slogans in and around Camperdown Memorial Rest Park
- the numerous striking works of wall art in the vicinity of St Peters Station and Applebee St, near Sydney Park
- the multi-panel Biblically-themed spraypaint mural on the rear wall of St Luke's Church, Enmore by Matthew Peet (aka 'Mistery')
Although Newtown's murals and graffiti art have played a significant role in shaping the character and image of the area, such works are by nature ephemeral, and this "collection" is constantly changing. A few examples like the "King" mural have endured for over a decade, but many others have vanished in recent years and it is common that new works remain for a just few weeks, days or in some cases only matter of hours.
One of the most celebrated acts of "street art" took place ca. 1990 when two university students painted most of Macdonaldtown Station bright pink in the early hours of the morning. Another famous case from the early 2000s was the graffiti placed on the front of the Hub Theatre late one night, which turned the two round windows into eyes, beneath which was the slogan "Touching my dick in the dark" -- a reference to the venue's former use as a "porno" cinema. This piece remained visible for only a few hours in the early morning, and by that afternoon it had already been painted over.
Another recent example is two slogans painted on the wall of a house on Salisbury Rd in Camperdown, at the intersection of Kingston Rd. A large hand-painted slogan which read "Madonna: The Devil Incarnate" was accompanied by a smaller slogan which read "iConsume". Both slogans lasted only about two weeks before being painted over.
[edit] Artists and attribution
Identifying the artists who have created the major murals, graffiti and street-art works around Newtown is in many cases a difficult task. Although several major works are community commissions, or were carried out with permission or at the request of building owners, others are clearly illegal. Therefore the artists obviously do not wish to be identified for fear of prosecution. Another impediment to attribution is the cryptic nature of the signatures and identifying 'tags' of the creators.
Nevertheless, several of the large-scale murals created in the early 1990s can be attributed with reasonable certainty to a loose group of mural artists who called themselves "Unmitigated Audacity Productions". This group is known to have included Sydney mural artists Matthew Peet (aka "Mistery", a member of hip-hop group The Brethren), Juilee Pryor, and New Zealand-born artist Andrew Aiken.
Among the past and present murals that can be attributed to known artists are:
- the 'Martin Luther King' mural on King St, painted by Andrew Aiken and Juilee Pryor have been identified as the artists who created .
- the Newtown PCYC murals are by Matthew Peet and Andrew Aiken.
- according to a City of Sydney Council policy document, the now-erased Miles Davis mural on Erskineville Rd ("On The Wings of a Song") was painted by Aiken and Peet.
- the now-erased "Idiot Box" mural at 64 Erskineville Rd, opposite the Imperial Hotel was created by Andrew Aiken[1].
- the large multi-panel mural on the rear wall of St Luke's Church in Stanmore Rd, Enmore, was painted by a team led by Matthew Peet
- the murals on the Abbey on King backpacker hostel, and the portraits of George Harrinson and Jimi Hendrix on the Bella St house are by Jason Moses
Aiken and/or Peet are also thought to be the creators of the 'Last Supper' mural on King St, the 'Eagle' mural on Wilson St (behind the Newtown Mission) and the 'Mona Lisa' mural at the top of Erskineville Rd (opposite Newtown Post Office).
[edit] Andrew Aiken
Andrew Aiken was the principal artist or a major collaborator on several of the most prominent murals in the Newtown are in the early 1990s. the The tragic story of his life was revealed in a 2003 Sydney Morning Herald article by Sean Nicholls. Using a donated cherry picker and $1000 worth of paint, Aiken and Pryor created the King mural over two nights in August 1991, declaring it a "humanist protest against the sterility of postmodern art".
Twelve months earlier Aiken had fled the UK after murdering a man he had lived with in a London squat and burying the body of the 40-year-old busker in the cellar. In 1997, after converting to Christianity, Aiken was convinced to give himself up by the leader of the Christian group he had joined. He returned to England, where he was tried and convicted of murder and he is now serving a life sentence in a British prison.[2]
[edit] Preservation
Preservation of street art, including the large-scale murals, is problematic. Many murals and other large designs have been illegally placed, and although councils are beginning to recognise the social significance of these works, many are removed by property owners who understandably regard them as acts of vandalism.
Regerettably, several of the largest murals and most prominent murals, dating from the early 1990s, have been removed since 2000 as urban re-redevelopment and the gentrification of the area has accelerated, in line with Newtown's ever-increasing property values.
The Council of the City of Sydney administers much of the north Newtown area, and in Paragraph 8 of its Aerosol Art and Graffiti Policy it recognises that these large murals are public-domain works worthy of conservation and maintenance. Despite this, property owners and developers have deliberately removed several of the most prominent works of "street art" in the area in recent years. Other major works have been painted over, 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.
[edit] Murals and wall art of the Newtown area
[edit] King Street north and environs
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The first major mural that visitors will encounter when driving or walking south along King St from the city is 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 December 2006), which was evidently painted from a projected transparency, is an enlarged reproduction of the top section of the front page of the Friday 10 July 1992 edition of the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper.
The Martin Luther King mural biggest, most prominent and best known of the Newtown murals. Created in August 1991[3] it celebrates American civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., and, in its present form, also links to the campaign for civil rights for Aboriginal Australians.
The mural is located on the wall of an imposing three-storey terrace building on the western side of King St, opposite the Newtown Gym and the Thai Pothong restaurant. It is now one of the last surviving large-format murals in the area. It displays a large portrait of Dr King, next to a large painted depiction 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, near which is the Biblical 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"
The lower part of the mural now merges into a large representation of the Aboriginal flag, but this is not its original form. As first conceived, the mural did not relate directly to Aboriginal issues, but to racial tolerance in a universal manner. Beneath the logo "I have a dream", was painted a freize of people. They were not, for the most part, the work of the original designers but were part of the concept and were contributed as a community participation by numerous artists and families, thus creating an interesting and entertaining diversity, both in the figures represented, and in their mode of depiction.
This lower section of the freize was subject to both vandalism and bill-posting. These acts caused considerable offense to the Aboriginal people who often used the space adjacent to the painting. This resulted in a sign being painted on the mural which requested would-be vandals and bill-posters to show proper respect. Towards the end of the 1990s the lower figures had deteriorated to an extent that they were replaced with the Aboriginal flag. Although the mural retains meaning in this form, it has become single-focussed, and no longer retains the impact and relevance to the diverse Newtown community that it had originally.
The Last Supper mural on King St is located opposite the intersection of Church St. This work is also thought to be by one or more members of the Unmitigated Audacity Productions group.
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The "Africa" mural in King St was originally painted in the early 1990s. This large work occupies the entire side wall of an African restaurant, located between the Newtown Mission and 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 over the original in the early 2000s, reflects the major changes in African political geography in the recent times.
The "Eagle" mural is located in Wilson St, Newtown, on the rear wall of the Newtown Mission. The graphic style and content are very similar to the "Martin Luther King" mural and it is presumed to have been created by Andrew Aiken sometime in the early to mid 1990s. The lengthy Biblical quoatation on the left-hand side of the mural is from the Book of Isaiah 40:28-31.
[edit] King Street south
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There are many prominent murals and "wall art" works to be found along the southern end of King St, between Newtown Station and St Peter's Station/Sydney Park. Only a few of these face directly onto King St, and most are located along the side walls of buildings on the corners of King St and the various side streets that lead off from it.
The most prominent of these is the "South of the Border" mural, which is located on the side wall of a shop on King St, just down from the Union Hotel. This mural was clearly visible for many years but is now largely obscured by a tree growing in the front yard of the terrace house next door.
[edit] Erskineville Road
'Below - the mural artworks on the former Newtown Police Citizens & Youth Club, cnr Erskineville Rd and Angel St
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The group of mural images, executed by Matthew Peet and Andrew Aiken in June-July 1995, are painted on the outside of the former Newtown Police Citizens Youth Club on Erskineville Rd. This is presumed to have been a legal project, and like the "Herald" mural in King St, these images were evidently created by painting over projected images. There are numerous 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 1980s Sydney identity the late Sallie-Anne Huckstepp. These images were still extant in mid-2007, although the building has been unused for a number of years and was recently damaged by fire and is currently surrounded by a metal hoarding, suggesting that demolition and/or redevelopment may be imminent (cf. the controversial proposal to build a large supermarket complex on this and adjoining lots.
[edit] The "Great Wave" mural
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One of the most spectacular Newtown murals is the "Great Wave" mural, painted on the side of a house located at the corner of Munni St and Gowrie St in south Newtown. Created in 2000, it features a striking combination of elaborate 3D tags 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 work is credited to artists "DAYS", "DMOTE", "PUDL" and "SNARL"
[edit] Trafalgar St
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The two story terrace located at the corner of Trafalgar St and Liberty St in Newtown is another prominent Newtown street art site. The street-side walls of the his house are adorned with a number of images including 1970s cartoon character "Fat Albert" (painted on the side fence), a large flowing design incorporating a mermaid, and a group of aliens. The Fat Albert was done by Rory (Rors/Akira?) and the aliens by Phiber/Phibs, a prominent artist in the area. The portraits of George Harrison and Jimi Hendrix on the Liberty St frontage are by graphic artist Jason Moses, who has collaborated with Matthew Peet and who also painted the travel-themed murals on the walls of the Abbey on King backpacker hostel in King St. This property was sold in early 2008 and the future of these murals is uncertain.
[edit] Other large murals
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The "Three Proud People" mural faces the railway adjacent to Macdonaldtown Station. Created ca. 2000, this mural is a reproduction of the famous photo taken at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, when African-American athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos sparked a storm of 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. This mural became the subject of significant Australian media coverage at the time of Norman's death. Regrettably, the view of this mural from the railway has now been virtually eliminated by the large concrete noise barrier recently erected along on the western side of the railway line between and Redfern stations.
The "Sydney '04" mural is on the corner of Eve and Coulson St, Erskineville. It was painted in 2004 with the permission of the owner by a team of artists -- Australian graffiti artist Dallas (who also created a controversial commissioned mural in Surry Hills [1]) and two others. Their tags, obscured by the car in the photo, are "Days Aus", "Drift NL" (from the Netherlands) and "Webs NZ". The owner added the red 'No War' slogan in 2007 as a protest against the war in Iraq and a kind of tribute to Saunders and Burgess, the peace activists who painted a "No War" slogan the Opera House in 2003. (Thanks to Jack C for photo and background information).
[edit] Enmore laneways
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One of the most popular areas for graffiti and wall art is the industrial area near the Silo Apartments, bounded by Station St, Enmore Rd, Phillip St and the railway. Many striking graffiti works can be seen on the various factory and warehouse walls along Gladstone St, Wilford St, Wilford Lane, Thurnby Lane and Phillip Lane.
Some of the most stylistically distinctive graffiti art works to appear in the Newtown area in recent times are the striking creations by the artist who signs his work "EMÖS". These highly intricate, semi-abstract bio-mechanical designs, executed by hand with spray paint, are all sited along Phillip Lane, behind Enmore Rd; some are still visible in June 2007, although inevitably they are being progressively covered by the work of other graffiti artists, and the two examples, shown above second from left and centre, haves now been painted over. However, a number of similarly-styled works by other artists, shown below, have appeared along Phillip Lane during in recent weeks.
There is a piece of graffiti on or near Bedford Street (next to the rail line), which says "Cut me a line / of poetry, man." It has been claimed that this was actually written by well-known local poet Benito Di Fonzo, and that he scribbled it to impress his then-girlfriend. It features in Di Fonzo's poem entitled, Cut Me A Line of Poetry.
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[edit] Camperdown Memorial Rest Park
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One of the key locations for political and personal graffiti in the Newtown area is the long sandstone wall surrounding St Stephen's Church in Newtown. The churchyear wall was constructed in the late 1940s, when the large cemetery that surrounded St Stephen's was cleared. The clearance and enclosure of the cemetery was prompted by the brutal murder of a local girl, whose mutilated body was discovered in the overgrown graveyard. As a result, most of the gravestones were taken up and placed around the inside of the sandstone wall, although the graves were not disturbed and the depressions that mark their locations are still discernable.
Much of the graffiti on the wall around the church is brush-painted or spray-painted, and many are politically oriented slogans, although some stencil graffiti has appeared in recent times, and a number of striking large-scale mural works have been painted on walls and fences surrounding the park.
Although most of the graffiti is relatively recent, some examples have survived for many years. One venerable piece of brush-painted graffiti (above, second from left), which can be reliably dated to the mid-1970s and which is still partially visible, is the political slogan, "Is Frazer (sic) controlling your bowels?" -- a reference to controversial 1970s Liberal Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser. A photograph of this slogan appeared in a 1976 book on Australian graffiti by photographer Rennie Ellis. Other long-lasting pieces of handpainted graffiti on this wall, believed to be from the late 1970s or early 1980s, include the slogans "Patriarchy creates destruction" and "Hands held violently on to words that meant nothing" (above, far left). Another slogan remembered by some residents, was: "broken-hearted disillusioned desperates against meanness and nastiness, greed and stupidity."
Another significant location in Camperdown Park is the various rear walls and back fences of the buildings at the southern edge of the park that face onto Australia Street. A large continuous mural (above, centre) featuring many pictoral designs and elaborate tags, has been painted along the side wall of the large commercial building that faces the Courthouse Hotel, and most of the other fences and walls in this area of the park now have murals or decorative tags, although these have changed a number of times in recent years. The two examples above illustrate this -- the mural second from right (photographed in March 2007) had been entirely painted over by July 2007 and replaced by the mural shown above, far right.
[edit] Stencil graffiti
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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 on the corner of Gladstone St and Phillip St, Newtown. The owners permit 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] Poster graffiti
During 2006-2007 several excellent examples of this new form of graphic street art have appeared in the Newtown area. Many small poster and sticker type graffiti graphics have been placed in various locations over the last few years, but these larger works -- similar in scope to the many large poster graffiti works that have appeared in Melbourne in recent years -- are a relatively recent development in Newtown.
Unlike the conventional painted designs and the recent craze for stencil graffiti, these new works are essentially a form of poster art. Smaller designs -- many of which are often affixed to the back of roadside traffic signs -- are evidently monochrome or hand-coloured photocopies.
Several large-format examples have appeared in 2007 such as the 'cartoon' figures pictured below, and the bus design, which is approximately 1 metre in legnth. Some, such as the octopus design from Gladstone St, appear to have been hand-painted on the backs of large professionally printed street posters.
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[edit] Works no longer extant
Below: four vanished Newtown murals -- "Idiot Box", Erskineville Rd (photographed November 2006), a Jimi Hendrix portrait in Camperdown Memorial Rest Park (photographed July 2005) and a colourful Mayan-inspired mural (same location and date) and a mural in Goddard Lane (off King St) photgraphed in Jan. 2007.
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(artist unknown) |
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A number of the largest works of street art in the Newtown area have been removed or painted over in recent years. This includes several large murals believed to have been executed by the same artist/s in the early-mid 1990s, and formerly located along or near Erskineville Road.
For many years from the 1970s, a strip of land along both sides of this Erskineville 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. This struggle is now commemorated by Green Bans Park, located near the railway on Erskineville Rd, and established on land formerly occupied by buildings that were demolished to make way for the proposed road.
Prominent works of street art and large murals that are no longer extant include:
- The well-known and much-loved "Idiot Box" mural by Andrew Aiken was located on the side wall of a large terrace house at 64 Erskineville Road, opposite the renowned Imperial Hotel. It featured a surrealistic portrait of the TV character Marcia Brady from The Brady Bunch, brandishing an automatic pistol, and painted as if she is bursting through the shattering glass of a TV screen. 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 by the new owners of the property in November/December 2006.
- the Felix the Cat and "Cat in the Hat" murals.; These images were painted on the sides of two houses near the intersection of Erskineville Road and Wilson St. These houses originally faced onto a council carpark that had been opened up by the demolition of the terrace that originally stood there. These murals were obscured by the construction of a large block of apartments on the site in the late 1990s. An image of the "Cat In The Hat" mural, taken by Ben Apfelbaum in 1990, can be viewed here
- the Miles Davis mural "On the wings of a song" by Andrew Aiken and Matthew Peet, was painted on the side of a house adjacent to the Mrs Mollie Swift Reserve on Erskineville Road. It depicted jazz musician Miles Davis playing his trumpet, with a rainbow and music notes flowing out from the bell of his instrument. This mural was erased/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.
- a figurative mural in Goddard Lane (off King St near the Newtown High School of the Performing Arts) which features distinctive depictions of a spray-can, a cat and a fish; this mural was painted over with a new design in Feb. 2008
[edit] References
- ^ City of Sydney - Aerosol Art and Graffiti (.pdf document)
- ^ Nicholls, Sean - "Wall of Silence"; Sydney Morning Herald; 25 April 2003
- ^ Nicholls, 2003, op.cit.
[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
[edit] External links
- ActNow - Newtown Graffiti
- Graffiti in the Inner City
- Graffiti mural in Linthorpe St Newtown, 2003
- Photographer Tom Balks - images of Newtown graffiti murals
- Newtown Flicks - Graffiti Flicks
- Poster Graffiti
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