Looking back at Hosier Lane

In 1987, a building on Hosier Lane exploded due to a gas leak. A few years later, it had an artistic explosion of street art, eventually making it an internationally renowned tourist attraction for the city. (Its location, less than a block from Flinders Street Station, helped.) It is a limited but visually dense space that is exploited by large and small commercial interests.

Hosier Lane, Melbourne

Hosier Lane is sort of a free-for-all graffiti space in the centre of Melbourne (although some of its walls are somewhat curated). It was first colonised by street artists and then painted by graffiti writers and mural artists, making it one of the city’s must-see tourist attractions. However, it is now in its third decade, and for many years now, it has been in decline; this is part of the tale of the long tail end of street art in Melbourne. Adnate’s five-storey mural of an Indigenous child still hangs like a kitsch albatross above Hosier Lane — a sign of the beginning of the era of the mural.

Last time I was there, I saw a stencil of astronauts by a visiting street artist from Canberra, the great E.L.K. It was covered mainly by garbage spray paint when I saw it. There is the ebb and flow of the tides of tagging and no-school graffiti over this brightly coloured urban coral reef. There are still graffiti writers spraying their pieces on every visible vertical surface in the city, from the creeks converted to concrete drains to the factory walls of industrial estates. And someone will always step up to fill the walls of this now-famous lane. And some of these will follow Adnate to work in the mural market. There is still a market for murals as businesses and city councils try to add some attraction to the ugly suburbia they have inherited.

However, rather than the big pieces, I like to look for the little details in the laneway. The street artists work at a different scale, filling the smaller spaces. For example, Will Coles’s work has survived the longest in the lane. His ‘Fake’ Gucci purse, made of concrete, still sits lost on the window ledge covered in millimetres of acrylic paint from hundreds of cans.

As tour groups still visit the lane, it has become a billboard for political causes with no other means of support. Currently, that means there is a lot of feminist street art because the lane is a relatively safe place for women to put up work in daylight. However, other groups, from supporters of West Papua Independence to Chinese dissidents, have also used the surfaces of Hosier Lane.

Given a bit of rough math, the artists who first painted Hosier Lane would be in their fifties or sixties now. The lane’s future is dependent on school kids and recently promoted city administrators.

Hosier Lane Time Line

1989 Andy Mac started the City Lights Initiative with light boxes of photographs

2003 Banksy paints his parachuting rats

2010 Melbourne City Council workers destroyed Banksy parachuting rats

2013 Adrain Doyle paints all of Rutledge Lane blue for Empty Nursery Blue

2013 Completely repainted for All Your Walls, part of the NGV’s Melbourne Now

2014 Adnate mural added to the lane

2014 Keep Hosier Real campaign to stop building development around the lane

2018 Culture Kings puts a hole in the lane’s main wall

2020 Six masked people ‘Colour Bombed’ the lane with paint-filled fire extinguishers

Look: graffiti reduction

A look at an effective graffiti reduction strategy used around Brunswick Station. I bet you didn’t expect to read a longitudinal study on how to prevent graffiti on this blog.

Slicer & Adnate (AWOL crew), Brunswick Station 2012

The same wall in 2022

In the past there were many pieces quality graffiti and street art on the block next to the station. This includes some of the area’s first legal walls, which is still in use, although the fishing tackle shop wall has now faded. I remember Banksy stencil of a chimp and Reka a purple monster on the station (or was that was at Jewell) — both removed to the disappointment of travellers young and old. The AWOL crew regularly painted several of the walls, Slicer, Adnate, etc., developing their mature styles from old-school graffiti (read my AWOL Evolution).  

It wasn’t the graffiti was terrible; it was the area that was ugly. The street artists and graffiti writers were trying their best to improve the aesthetics of a neglected section of land behind factories – dirt, rocks and fly tipping. The barren area was a no-mans land between the petty fiefdoms of the local council and the railway. So another anarchic community group, Upfield Urban Forest moved in and started to plant trees and cultivate a garden — fine community-minded people with as much planning permission as a graffiti writer. (Read more about Upfield Urban Forest in Brunswick Voice.) Now that the trees have grown, the walls are no longer visible, making them no longer desirable for graffiti writers and street artists.

Tips on preventing graffiti are often vacuous recommendations written by local councils providing less than helpful advice. Regular removal, anti-graffiti coatings, improved lighting, and uneven surfaces are expensive and environmentally unsound options. Painting walls dark colours to discourage graffiti; black is a favourite colour of graffiti writers to buff/undercoat a wall with because it makes colours pop. Another recommended simply growing creepers on the wall, forgetting that creepers like ivy with do more damage to the wall than a coat of acrylic paint.

Graffiti can appear overnight, a mural or legal wall can take a little longer, and a substantial improvement will not happen overnight. It takes years to grow a tree. It took about a decade of work around Brunswick Station and Premier Daniel Andrews “sky-rail” project will destroy it.

All of the artists mentioned in this post have gone on to paint bigger and better walls.

Brunswick Station 2022

The Ardern mural

Apart from the graffiti pieces at their base the old silos have stood empty for decades. Now there is a mural by Loretta Lizzio of Jacinda Ardern embracing a Muslim woman on one of them.

So why in Brunswick? The silo is owned by a Muslim and Coburg’s Islamic community has supported the mural. The mural was crowd funded and the artist, Lizzio donated her time. And Ardern is considered far more believable than any current Australian politician according to a recent poll.

I wouldn’t call it an original work; as is a copy of a photograph taken in NZ after the Christchurch massacre. I assume that it has been done with copyright permission from the photographer. And originality is not the purpose of the work, it is getting the image and message up there.

Tinning Street is a good area to explore and see street art and graffiti in Brunswick. There are often fresh new graffiti pieces in the other nearby lanes and there were some guys painting when I was there this week. There is also the vibrant Ilhan Lane, the Hosier Lane of Brunswick for street art. (Ilhan Lane is named after “Crazy John” Ilhan. Remember when retailers would advertise that they were mentally ill? Crazy John, Ken Bruce has gone mad, Bipolar Bill; okay I made the last one up. I’m glad that trend came to an end.)

At Moreland Station I notice that OG23 and Askem have repainted the same wall that they have been painting for decades. It is not unusual. (See my post Same Walls.)

OG23 & Askem

Has Melbourne’s street art and graffiti reached an almost steady state? In my last blog post about street art wrote that it had. A point where very little changes except for the names and locations; although many of the names and locations have been the same for decades. A decade ago new forms of street art were being explored: installations, yarn bombing, people even thought that you could grow moss in patterns.

Adnate and Fantauzzo

Vincent Fantauzzo collaboration mural with Adnate in Strachan Lane serves as a reminder that street art is now another luxury commodity. F is not a street artist and his fine art works with a theme of luxury and fashion. Artists can have their careers entirely within the street art and graffiti scene, rather than moving to another career in graphic design or fine arts. This professionalism has brought an end to the D.I.Y. aspects of the culture.

What will alter the current stasis?

Locally I have seen that growth of guerrilla gardening out compete graffiti along the Upfield trainline. Planting at Brunswick Station now obscure walls that were once regularly painted. Along the tracks the vines on the side of The Commons building at Anstey Station have green-buffed large sections of that wall.

Scanning the horizon with a global look I wonder how will the environmental hazards of the current street art and graffiti be tolerated? The chemicals, the one-use cans and other aspects make it environmentally unsustainable. Painting another mural to raise public awareness will only be a sustainable argument for a short time.

Van Rudd, climate strike mural

Ten years of Melbourne’s street art and graffiti

Ten years in the history of Melbourne’s street art and graffiti told with a series of artists, crews and events. Rather than another listical of notable street artists this is an attempt at a kind of chronology that points out peaks rather than beginnings and endings. In it there are artists who opened new directions, who could not be ignored, who reinvented themselves or the techniques and the idea of street art and graffiti. There are artists who have persisted along with artists who for a short time made a big impact. It is a list based on my observation of Melbourne’s street art and writing them in this blog.

 

Ha Ha ‘Ned Kelly’

2008: Drew Funk and HaHa

Drew Funk and HaHa are two affable guys, studio mates and friends on the two sides of the aerosol paint use. Drew Funk’s aerosol art and HaHa’s stencil work were once ubiquitous with the Melbourne street art scene.

2009: Ghostpatrol and Miso

The power couple of the emerging illustrative street art scene. Ghostpatrol’s whimsical character illustrations and Miso’s paper cuts were fresh styles and techniques. Neither does any street art now both quickly moving into the fine art and legal murals.

Junky Projects in Fitzroy

2010: Yarn Wrap and Junky Projects

Both these artists expanded media of street art. Before Bali Portman and Yarn Corner crew there was Yarn Wrap guerrilla knitting. I was sceptical when I first heard about yarn bombing but I was wrong and the technique quickly became a favourite of city councils. Meanwhile, Junky Projects collecting rubbish from the street and transforming it in the most coherent and long term up-cycling project ever.

2011: The Everfresh and the AWOL Crews

The Everfresh crew of Phibs, Rone, Reka, Meggs, Sync, Makatron, Wonderlust, Prizm and the Tooth have been the most significant crew in Melbourne. The AWOL crew of Adnate, Deams, Itch, Li-Hill, Lucy Lucy, Slicer were not far behind and by changing their styles they sprayed their way to more fame.

Immolating portrait of Yukio Mishima by CDH

Baby Guerrilla at Union Dinning Terrace

2012: CDH and Baby Guerrilla

Two ambitious artists who made a big impact but are no longer actively making art on the streets. CDH was the mad scientist of the street art scene; trying out new techniques using fire, hydroactivated paint and creating conundrums for the NGV with his Trojan Petition. At the same time, Baby Guerrilla was reaching for the heavens, trying to fill the largest and highest walls with her floating paste-up figures.

2013: All Your Walls & Empty Nursery Blue

Both projects buffed the walls of Melbourne’s graffiti central to good effect. Adrian Doyle painted the whole of Rutledge Lane blue. And, as a curated part of the NGV’s “Melbourne Now” exhibition, the whole of Hosier Lane was repainted by some of Melbourne’s best graffiti and street artists in All Your Walls.

Rone in Collins Street, 2014

Adnate, Hosier Lane, 2014

2014: Rone and Adnate

In 2014 year both artists painted very large legal murals of big faces on big walls. Everfresh crew member Rone painted women’s faces and AWOL crew member Adnate painted Indigenous people.

Kranky, Melbourne

Tinky, Melbourne

2015: Kranky and Tinky

Kranky was a crazy explosion of assemblages, then it stopped; maybe the supply of plastic toys ran out. Tinky used even smaller toys to make her little scenes Along with other artists Kranky and Tinky revived the street art in Presgrave Place.

Lush’s work in Richmond

2016: Lush and Nost

The most irritating assholes in Melbourne’s street art/graffiti scene where there are plenty of irritating assholes. These two guys have made it a speciality. Lush does have a trollish sense of humour but he highlights a problem that is essentially for so much street art, especially murals, they are just click bait. Nost is a tagger, an aerosol bomber who hates street art.

2017: Astral Nadir

The art Astral Nadir encouraged me to look down at the sidewalk and not up on the walls. With so many walls already painted and the backs of signs covered in stickers Astral Nadir artistically exploring a relatively unused area in Melbourne.

Street Art notes January 2018

I had low expectations of the city’s first official street art precinct and they were met. The ‘official precinct’ was launched in December 2017. It is just a couple of murals by Adnate, Dvate, Fintan Magee, Rone and Sofles on walls in Lt. Bourke Street before it ends at Spencer Street. Several big heads and a big orange belly parrot.

Adnate

 

Fintan Magee

Sofles

Rone

Most murals in Melbourne serve the interests of property developers or local city councils; similar interests anyway. The realistic images are sentimental, superficial and a distraction from what is happening around the large wall. Murals are anti-graffiti, anti-street art management strategy… but enough about murals (or if you want to read more).

I am look for something else on the streets, something smaller. (The smallest piece perhaps…)

perhaps Sunfigo’s work

Twobe

Lister

I find a stencil; perhaps, given the geometric lines in the body of scorpion, it is by Sunfigo. A cartoon face by Twobe and one by the internationally renown artist Lister, who blurs the rough line between contemporary art and street art.

Lov3

An excellent piece and installation by Lov3 in Collingwood. Up-cycling three discarded mattress and using the quilting pattern as snake scales.

Silk Roy

In Flinders Court I saw a recent piece by local Melbourne artist, Silk Roy. Silk Roy loves painting. Sure many artists love to paint, often painting the same thing over and over again, in that they enjoy that experience. However, Silk Roy’s art shows more than just enjoyment like the conservative mural painters but artistic risk taking, changing and developing. This is graffiti aware of contemporary painting. (Read an interview with Silk Roy on Invurt.) Silk Roy does paint big walls but I doubt that he will be painting a multi-story mural any time soon and that, for me, is a relief.

Anti-Muralism

For the past three years murals, very large multi-story painted walls are the popular form in Melbourne’s street art. Murals are also very popular in advertising and with socialists. Van Rudd says that wants to revive the tradition of political mural painting in Melbourne that happened with Geoff Hogg in the 1970s.

Murals are seen as community art solution, read Tony Matthews and Deanna Grant-Smith “How murals helped turn a declining community around” in The Conversation, as well as an advertising technique. Dvate’s painted banner for The Lion King in 2015 or HaHa’s 2016-17 3MMM banner at Macaulay railway station, a favourite old haunt of HaHa when he was running around the city getting his name up. Smug’s mural on Otter Street promoting a luxury apartment development, makes gentrification cute. The popularity of murals makes for endless commercial applications.

I think that I lost a lot of my interest in Melbourne’s street art when murals became the dominate form of street art. I don’t like most murals, street art or otherwise, as I have already written about the Harold Freedman mosaic mural on the Fire Station. So I don’t feel as motivated to write about street art, although I have written about Rone and Adnate’s murals.

Rone in Collins Street, 2014

I’m not sure what it is about murals that I don’t like, after all they are just very large paintings. I do like a few murals in Melbourne. The Keith Haring mural in Collingwood but that is because I like his other work and the mural is simply a large example. I don’t think of the large walls by sprayed with fire extinguishers full of paint by Ash Keating and others as murals because they are just paint whereas a mural is about something.

Often murals are so about something that it feels like you are being lectured or advertised at. I’m not sure that I want the intended message or non-message of a mural and even if I do then what about people who don’t? The intended mass audience of a mural makes is like advertising. Whereas I like art that is aimed at a small audience rather than the lowest common denominator. The bigger the audience does not mean the better the art; size is kind of pornographic.

At other times there is so little content in a mural, like Rone’s faces, that being content free and abstract would have something more than these substitutes for content. For this reason I found Doyle’s Empty Nursery Blue to be more artistic than any and all of Rone’s murals.

I was also wondering if it is because murals lack a human scale. Murals are different to graffiti pieces in terms of scale. The reach of a graffiti writer defines the height of a piece, the arc of the curves so that a piece of graffiti reflects a human scale. Whereas the size of a mural is determined by the size of the wall and the equipment used.

Cam and Scale, Brunswick 2017

Bigger, Biggest

Rone’s new mural, L’inconnue de la rue (unknown girl in the street) on the wall of the building at 80 Collins Street claims to be the largest mural in Australia. I don’t want to get into a mural measuring competition but I counted nine stories for Rone’s new mural making it larger than Adnate’s new five-story mural in Hosier Lane. (I used to live near a business that claimed to be “the biggest laundromat in the southern hemisphere” over in West Brunswick.)

Rone in Collins Street

Rone is from the Everfresh crew and Adnate is from the AWOL crew. The Everfresh and AWOL crews have been in open competition since 2011, when they were in a competition for the space in the NGV’s studio. Everfresh won that round and had an exhibition in NGV’s Studio. The next round in this competition are two giant murals by first Adnate and now Rone.

Everfresh are the established masters of Melbourne street art based in Collingwood with heaps of reputation on Melbourne’s streets. AWOL, the new comers from Brunswick, bring both ambition and a willingness to change and develop their style. The only member of the Everfresh crew to really change styles has been Reka, Makatron has developed but after seeing about a hundred Phibs on walls, boards, tattoos etc. his style isn’t that fresh anymore.

Adnate at work in Hosier Lane

It is good that Melbourne’s street artists are now being offered such large walls; they have been crying out for large walls for years. Neither of these huge murals are great works of art, except in their size, as they are both thematically and artistically far to simple. Their style goes back to the hand painted painted advertising billboards of the 1950s and 60s, that many commercial artists used to paint, including James Rosenquist before he turned to Pop art.

There are a couple of holes with Rone’s new mural; the most obvious is that bit of old wall that has had concrete sprayed on it. Why wasn’t that part painted over? Why is it there to begin with? The other problem is that the image distorts as you look up from the lane way; the perspective of the face only works when viewed from a certain position near Nauru House. Simply scaling up an image to fit a wall this large is not enough.

I’m looking forward to seeing what the next round of this creative competition between these two crews will bring but I just want to point out that the biggest mural in Melbourne was Adrian Doyle’s Empty Nursery Blue in 2013 that covered both sides and the paving of Rutledge Lane.