Newtown area graffiti and street art
[2] Street art locations in the greater Newtown area include:[3] Another example is two slogans painted on the wall of a house on Salisbury Road in Camperdown, at the Kingston Rd intersection.
[8] Using a donated cherry picker and a thousand dollars worth of paint, Aiken and Pryor created the "I Have a Dream" mural on King Street over two nights in August 1991, describing it as a "humanist protest against the sterility of postmodern art".
In 1997, after converting to Christianity, Aiken was convinced to give himself up by the leader of the religious group he had joined, the Twelve Tribes community in Picton, New South Wales.
[9][10] The "Big City Freaks" street art collective, founded in 1998, includes the artists DMOTE, PUDL, SNARL, SKULL McMURPHY (Troy Edwards), SET and ZEN (aka SKOTE STYLES).
The group has executed several large-format murals and other works in the distinctive "blended" style, combining highly stylized tags and striking graphic elements such as monsters, aliens, robots, skulls and designs sourced from Japanese art.
One of BCF's most recent works is a large-format mural, created in late October 2009 on the rear wall of the Ausscrap Building, facing Wilford Street, Enmore.
[11] The mural is featured on the CD back cover photograph of the album, Size of the Ocean, by Sydney, Australia band, Big Heavy Stuff.
Moreover, a Council media spokesperson recently stated that its general approach is "... to remove graffiti quickly and consistently to help maintain the appearance of our city while discouraging repeat incidents".
Many others have been obscured by adjacent construction or destroyed by the demolition of the buildings on which they are painted, as in the case of the wall along Wilford Lane, Enmore, which formed the rear part of the former Blockbuster video store site, which was redeveloped into a large apartment complex.
This large mural is an enlarged reproduction of the above the fold of the front page of the 10 July 1992 edition of the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper, as can be clearly seen in the accompanying image.
At the time the mural was created, there was a raised garden bed against the wall of the building and the shrubs planted there partially obscured the bottom section, which initially featured a painted collage of a group of people.
The council cleared the vegetation soon after and the lower part of the mural soon began to be defaced, notably with racist graffiti, which Aiken and Pryor quickly painted over, sometimes with anti-racist slogans.
He subsequently repainted the entire bottom section with a Newtown "Declaration of Independence" that featured a large blank space and the invitation "Sign here".
At some point after this was painted, the council removed the garden bed and the declaration was in turn replaced with the design that is still in place, a large representation of the Aboriginal flag.
There are many prominent murals and "wall art" works to be found along the southern end of King Street, between Newtown station and St Peters station/Sydney Park.
The "South of the Border" mural (created by Unmitigated Audacity Productions) is located on the side wall of a shop on King Street, opposing the Union Hotel.
Created by retired artist, Colin Bebe, it depicts various African wild animals rampaging around the intersection of King Street and Enmore Road.
The work is credited to artists "DAYS", "DMOTE", "PUDL" and "SNARL", members of the street art collective "Big City Freaks" (BCF), whose initials can be seen on the far right of the Great Wave mural.
The street-side walls of this house were adorned with a number of images including 1970s cartoon character Fat Albert (painted on the side fence), a large flowing design incorporating a mermaid (depicting the owners love of swimming), and a group of aliens.
In late 2013 two new mural works, one depicting Bogart and Hepburn in The African Queen, and the other of singer Freddie Mercury were painted onto the Trafalgar St side of the building (facing the railway).
In 2008, Melbourne filmmaker Matt Norman led a campaign to attempt to force RailCorp to install transparent noise barriers to allow the mural to be seen by commuters.
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?
[citation needed] 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).
Smaller designs are typically monochrome photocopies (some of which may be hand coloured) while others have been printed as self-adhesive stickers which are often affixed to roadside traffic signs.
The Inner West Council initiative invited local property owners to find their Perfect Match by registering interest to have graffitied walls transformed by renowned street artists.
A number of the largest works of street art in the Newtown area have been removed or painted over by the 21st century; including several large murals executed by Aiken, Pryor and others in the early to mid-1990s (formerly located along, or near, Erskineville Road).
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.
Prominent street art pieces and large murals that are no longer extant include: In mid-2009, artists associated with Sydney company, "Mr Perso & Detch", to execute a commissioned "guerilla" graffiti campaign on behalf of Warner Music to promote the album, 21st Century Breakdown, by American rock band, Green Day.
The large images depicted the artwork and title of the album; however, at least two of the Newtown murals were soon defaced as a protest by locals, who sprayed over the slogan "CA$h Cow".
The advert, a commercial stencil transfer, drew attention from locals opposed to corporations including Coca-Cola Amatil using Newtown spaces for product advertising.
