Underwater Doorway Girl

Another offering tucked away in a quiet road by street artist Barek.

Barek

I love the little characters this artist paints. This is stuck on the side of one of those little telephone exchange boxes. It's just a few centimetres wide.

See more here.

The Writing's On The Wall

The changing face of graffiti...

Skate Arena Paint Job

It's been a while since I've been past the old Skate Arena in Red Hill. The building has been lying dormant for years after a fire and is slowly surrendering to the elements. Some photographers have managed to get inside and take some beautiful shots but I'm not that brave. The artist who painted the outside wall here is called Drapl - he also painted the latest rail support in South Brisbane which I posted about recently here.

Fenced In Cows

The old ABSOE building in Boundary Street, West End, has hosted some great weekend markets, a couple of music venues, bars and art studios for the past couple of years but all that has come to an end now as developers move in to bulldoze the current buildings and build 1350 luxury flats spread over seven 15-storey towers. Much of the local community is against the development.

It was an unceremonious end to the last markets on Friday night. The developers were worried the community would start protesting so they cancelled the event, erected some fencing and employed some security.

Then they had to put a fence in front of the original fence which is causing more controversy...

The artist, Stewart, is back again today to do some repainting. He's going over the cows with native birds. We'll see how that one pans out..

Becky

I'm waiting for a really amusing response to this graffiti - which has been up there on a wall on Montague Road all week. Council are dragging their heels with this one. They've painted over far less offensive and much more thought provoking stuff a lot quicker.

Support The Arts

Queensland Rail has commissioned several artists over the past year to paint murals on the concrete supports that hold up the elevated railway line in South Brisbane. Today I came across the latest one which was in the process of being painted - deffo a photo opportuinity! Pity I only had my phone camera but you get the general idea. The artist is Brisbane-based graffiti artist Drapl.

The photo he was working from is of a local musician called James 'Laneous' Lane who is in a band called Laneous and The Family Yah. Triple J describes it as "Mutant Soul and Croon Punk" - what a description! When it's finished, the words will read "Raise The Vibration".

Here it is in context near the south side of the Go Between Bridge. Drapl said he's just painted the outside of the old skate arena in Red Hill. I posted a couple of pics from there a few years ago - it was attracting artists back then too -  so I'll have to re-visit and give you an update.

And now to a developing storey....

It's been a long time in between drinks but here I am again. Hurray! I've been feeling for a while that it's time for a comeback. Doing this blog makes me feel more connected to where I live and what is happening around me. And there's a lot happening around me in my neighbourhood of West End. What has historically been an industrial area - probably due to the high flood risk - has in the last few years had a huge amount of development applications approved. The projected population of our area is set to double in the next few years. That's just in West End. Across the river in Toowong the same thing is happening. Infact, throughout the inner city, if a house gets knocked down, you can expect a block of units to rise in its place.

The case for development is that the greater city's footprint is sprawling - roughly the size of London but with a fraction of the population. Traditionally, people from Brisbane have lived in single-level high-set houses on big blocks. But if the city is to prosper and grow, this type of housing - particularly so close to the centre of town - is unsustainable and a waste of valuable space.

The case against the current developments is that thousands of new residents are moving into the area (with thousands of cars). I read somewhere that the population density between the river and Montague Road will be similar to Hong Kong yet there is apparently no planning for new schools/infrastructure/parks/public transport. There will be high towers (some 15 stories or more) close together, creating dark, windy streets. There is no allowance for affordable housing - all the apartments being built are "luxury".  And everything is being built on an area that was under several feet of river water in 2011 during the flood. Local residents aren't anti-development - just anti-bad development. (Can you tell which side I'm on?)

See here for a related post back in 2012.

Viet strikes again...

 

One of Brisbane's more interesting taggers is Viet. This is high up on a fence on Boundary Street in West End. It's the third one I've spotted - all within about a kilometre of eachother. If you notice any more, give me a yell.

 

Other two here and here.

Face on a wall

This one is only small - less than 10cm high, I would say. I really like it.

Ashington Street Characters

 

 The crumbling walls of an old house in Ashington Street are providing an interesting canvas for a spot of street art.

I Spy Another VIET

To see it properly you need to be about 2 metres higher than where I was standing when I took this shot... but you can more or less see it: the letters "VIET" stylized in four images.

Yesterday I said I'd seen the Viet graffiti tag around West End but I realised when I went looking that this was the only one and it's not really a tag (the other one was a big spray-painted "Vietnam"). I'm wondering if that "2010 Still Vietnow" is relevant? Vietnow is a rap song by Rage Against The Machine that's about 15 years old with an anti right-wing sentiment. Maybe it ties in with the Occupy movement? Vietnow is also a Vietnam Vets' group. Surely they'd be getting a bit long in the tooth for all this sort of thing? Maybe not... who knows?

If I see any more interesting Viets around the place, I'll stick them up here for you to check out.

VIET

 If you stand in the doorway of the Gallery of Modern Art with your back to the gallery and look right, you see this. Naturally I thought it was to do with the gallery and looked it up on their website but couldn't find anything. I did a Google search for Viet and Scrabble Tile Art but still nothing came up. I called the gallery and they say it has nothing to do with them at all and they think it's a piece of street art. I have seen the graffiti tag "Viet" around West End in spray paint but this is something new.

Fig Tree with a Spray Can

100 Hardgrave Road

I've posted twice about this place in Hardgrave Road; once when they knocked the house down except for the facade (here) and once, not so long ago, to show how local artists have used it as a canvas (here). Friends of ours used to live here. This week, the builders are out the back working hard, pouring concrete slabs over what was once the back yard. A place of lazy parties, neighbours talking over low fences, swings in trees, wild flowers and herb gardens. I still haven't worked out what the point of keeping the facade was and what they are going to do with it once the new buildings behind take shape. This is taken from the back...

Paste-ups, slogans and spray paint have spread like weeds, adorning both the outside walls and the remaining area inside.

I get the feeling that it's living on borrowed time so I'd better get a few more snaps in before the newly-poured concrete takes over and the developers commit a neatness. Shame, really.

Faces Facade

Last year I posted a photo of this facade. The council knocked down most of the building leaving the facade. Well one year on, the facade is still here with nothing behind it but mud. The grass and weeds have grown tall and the local graffiti and paste-up artists have had a ball with it. See last year's photo here.

Love, Fish, Banksy and Other Stuff

On our way back from dinner last weekend, we ended up hanging out in a neighbour's garden that we didn't know listening to live music (as you do). On one of the walls was this flyer. When I asked about it, I was told Love and Fish are graffiti artists who are having an exhibition which starts today. I'm interested in the idea of graffiti artists being exhibited conventionally like this and getting famous. Look at Banksy - his stuff is worth an absolute fortune now and there is a major scandal if someone accidentally wipes it off. He's had exhibitions in major galleries and people pay good money to see his stuff. Increasingly, artists seem to be using graffiti as a foothold to get noticed... and appealing to a much wider audience because their work is so public. But once they are noticed and their prints are being sold, the whole street-art thing isn't as prolific. I suppose graffiti doesn't pay the rent.

Spray Painted Deity

Spotted in a vacant block in West End recently.

October Theme Day: Graffiti

This is a wall near my house on a vacant lot that has been repeatedly spray-painted by local graffiti artists. I love that technicolour grout between the bricks and the contrasting textures of the bricks themselves.

Today's post is part of the City Daily Photo community's monthly theme day. The theme is Graffiti.
Click here to view thumbnails for all participants

Vehicle Respray

As promised from Wednesday's post, this is the sprayed caravan by Shida which was part of the Trailer Trash installation at The Planting festival in Woodford in May. It sure beats beige!