Newtown area graffiti and street art

Andrew Aiken: Mona Mural Erskinville Rd, Newtown, c1990.

Many of the biggest and best-known large-scale murals painted in Newtown in the early 1990s were created by a group of mural artists called "Unmitigated Audacity Productions (UAP)". This group included Sydney mural artists, Matthew Peet (aka "Mistery" and member of hip-hop group, Brethren), Juilee Pryor, and New Zealand-born artist, Andrew Aiken.

Among the past and present murals that can be attributed to UAP are:

• The "Martin Luther King" mural on King St, painted by Andrew Aiken and Juilee Pryor (with Tony Spanos), now heritage listed.[3]
• The "Mona" mural by Andrew Aiken, on Erskineville Rd opposite Newtown Post Office; as of 2011, still in existence, but now in a poor state of preservation.
• The "South of the Border" mural on King St South, near the Union Hotel.
• The Newtown Police Citizens Youth Club (PCYC) murals, by Matthew Peet and Andrew Aiken; the PCYC was demolished in 2015 and a new apartment complex is currently under construction.
• The now-erased Miles Davis/John Coltrane mural on Erskineville Rd ("On The Wings of a Song"), painted by Aiken and Peet.
• The now-erased "Per Ardua ad Astra" mural, painted on the wall of the house opposite the "On The Wings of a Song" mural; the piece is clearly visible from Newtown Railway station.
• The "Pieta" mural, by Andrew Aiken, painted on the side of a (currently abandoned) house on Erskineville Road, opposite the BP service station.
• The now-erased "Idiot Box" mural at 64 Erskineville Rd, opposite the Imperial Hotel was created by Andrew Aiken.[4]
• 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 As of early 2016 this has largely been defaced or erased and only a few sections remain.
• "Deja Vu 1" (1992), was painted on a wall on the corner of Erskineville Rd and Linthorpe St. According to Pryor, it was painted by Aiken " ... in an explosion of rage about the war in Bosnia. The theme is remembrance and the futility of war. On the base of the wall can be seen the words 'Have we already forgotten?'". This mural is no longer extant and the building on which it was painted was subsequently demolished and replaced by an apartment complex.[5]

Juilee Pryor photographed much of the group's mural work and she has donated digital copies of these photos to the City of Sydney's photographic archive on the ArchivePix website[5]

Andrew Aiken was the principal artist and major collaborator on several of the most prominent murals in the Newtown area in the early 1990s. His life was detailed in a 2003 Sydney Morning Herald article by Sean Nicholls.[6] Using a donated cherry picker and a thousand dollars worth of paint, Aiken and Pryor created the "I Have a Dream" mural on King St. over two nights in August 1991, describing it as a "humanist protest against the sterility of postmodern art". [7]

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 squat's cellar. 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. He returned to England, where he was tried and convicted of murder. He served 8 years in prison and, on his release in 2005, joined another Twelve Tribes community in Chilliwack, British Columbia.[7][8]

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. Probably the most popular and currently the longest-surviving example of their collective work is the "Great Wave" mural. The group has its own website, where images of many of the group's works can be seen. 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 St, Enmore.[9]

The mural is featured on the CD back cover photograph of the album, Size of the Ocean, by Sydney, Australia band, Big Heavy Stuff.

• the murals on the Abbey on King backpacker hostel, and the portraits of George Harrison and Jimi Hendrix on the Bella St house are by Jason Moses

Africa Mural off King St, Newtown, c2000.

The first mural that visitors will encounter when traveling south along King St. from the city is the "Herald" mural in northern King St. This large mural is an enlarged reproduction of the above the fold of the front page of the Friday 10 July 1992 edition of the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper, as can be clearly seen in the accompanying image. The image below the SMH says 'No Time'. At the bottom right hand corner used to be the words 'like the present'. This little section was removed during the creation of a driveway for the business that set up next door (around the mid-2000s).

The "I Have a Dream" (Martin Luther King) mural, painted over two nights in August 1991, is the largest, most prominent, and the longest-surviving of the many large format murals created around Newtown by the team known as Unmitigated Audacity Productions, the core members of which were New Zealand-born Canadian artist Andrew Aiken and his colleague Juilee Pryor. They were assisted in this mural by Tony Spanos, who provided a cherry-picker to allow the upper part of the mural to be painted.[7] It commemorates American civil rights leader Dr Martin Luther King Jr.. 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 Apollo 8 photograph of the Earth from space, and quotes Dr King's 1963 "I Have a Dream" in large Gothic lettering, near which is the 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 upper section of the design remains largely unchanged from its original concept. A portion of left-hand-side of the mural was damaged by a 2011 fire that destroyed a temporary ticket booth set up nearby, but it was restored soon after.[7] The lower part of the mural has gone through numerous changes since it was first painted. 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. Frustrated by criticism of the mural by Marrickville Council's Community Arts Officer of the time, Aiken then over-painted the figures with a quotation from the officer ("Murals are no longer a valid art form") in large white Gothic lettering. 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.[5]

The Last Supper Mural on King St. is located opposite the intersection of Church St. Despite broad community acceptance of the mural and the general respect shown to it, the mural has recently been defaced by vandal taggers who climbed onto the roof of the building it is painted on (and many others in the vicinity) and who spray-painted tags on the top edge of the mural and many other buildings in the vicinity.

The "Africa" mural in King St. was originally painted in the early 1990s. The 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., most likely 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 quotation on the left-hand side of the mural is from the Book of Isaiah 40:28-31.

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 "South of the Border" mural (created by Unmitigated Audacity Productions) is located on the side wall of a shop on King St., opposing the Union Hotel. This mural was clearly visible for many years, but is now obscured by a tree growing in the front yard of the terrace house next door.

The major mural along Enmore Road is the "Jungle" mural painted on the side of the medical practice on the corner of Bailey St. and Enmore Rd., next to the Caltex petrol station. Created by retired artist, Colin Bebe, it depicts various African wild animals rampaging around the intersection of King St. and Enmore Rd.

BCF: Great Wave Mural Munni/Gowrie St, Newtown, 2000.

One of the largest and longest-lasting 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 style abstract pieces and pictorial images on a Japanese theme, including a huge image of a breaking wave rendered in the style of the famous Hokusai woodcut The Great Wave Off Kanagawa. 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. In October 2009 members of this group rendered a new mural along the rear wall of the Ausscrap building, facing Wilford St.

The two story terrace located at the corner of Trafalgar St and Liberty St in Newtown was another prominent Newtown street art site. The work was commissioned over time during the mid to late nineties to give street artists a prominent wall for their work and to brighten an otherwise grey point in the urban landscape. 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. The Fat Albert was done by Rory (Rors/Akira?) and the aliens by Phiber/Phibs, both prominent artists of the area. The portraits of George Harrison and Jimi Hendrix on the Liberty St. frontage were 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 underwent extensive renovation during 2010, resulting in the eventual destruction of all the murals painted there prior to 2010. 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).

"Shine" mural, Linthorpe St

"Guard Dogs", near Newtown Station (no longer extant)

The "Three Proud People" mural faces the railway adjacent to the Macdonaldtown railway station. Created ca. 2000, the 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 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. For many years, the mural was a landmark for thousands of commuters who passed it daily on Sydney's western rail line. In 2007, RailCorp erected high concrete noise barriers near MacDonaldtown Station, which obscured the mural from train travellers. 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.[12]

The "Sydney '04" mural is located 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 ) 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.

Free Speech Mural Witford St, Enmore.

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 murals in this area have remained intact for several years while others typically last for only short periods before being tagged or overpainted.

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 in recent weeks.

A piece of graffiti on or near Bedford Street (next to the railway line), which says "Cut me a line / of poetry, man." has been attributed to well-known local poet Benito Di Fonzo. People have claimed that he scribbled the piece to impress his then-girlfriend, local artist Joanne Patricia Shand (aka. Jo Jo Rona). The line is featured in Di Fonzo's poem, "Cut Me A Line of Poetry". Another dedication to Patricia Shand exists in Erskineville that shows her with two dogs in a wall mural; however, the painter is unknown.

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. By the 1940s the cemetery was overgrown. In 1946 local girl Joan Norma Ginn was murdered and her body dumped in the cemetery, where it remained for several days before being found. This prompted action by the local council, which resulted in all but four acres being cleared and resumed as public space. An Act of Parliament in 1948 established the Camperdown Memorial Rest Park, under control of the local council. 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 discernible.

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.

• Newtown PCYC - the group of mural images, executed by Unmitigated Audacity Productions in June–July 1995, were painted on the outside of the former Newtown Police Citizens Youth Club building 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 (at night) with the use of projected images. There were numerous panels of pictures and text, including portraits of 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 until October 2013, although, the building had been unused for a number of years, has been partially damaged by fire and for several years was surrounded by a metal hoarding. The Newtown PCYC was demolished in early November 2013 for the construction of a new apartment complex, resulting in the destruction of all murals.

"Idiot Box" mural, Erskineville Rd (no longer extant)

• The popular "Idiot Box" mural that was created by Unmitigated Audacity Productions. The mural 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 television character, Marcia Brady, from The Brady Bunch, brandishing an automatic pistol; the mural was painted as if she was bursting through the shattering glass of a television 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. This significant mural, which had been in place since 1993, was removed by the then owners of the property in November/December 2006.

• The Felix the Cat and "Cat in the Hat" murals. The murals 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. This was painted on the side of a house adjacent to the Mrs. Mollie Swift Reserve on Erskineville Road. It depicted jazz musicians Miles Davis and John Coltrane with a rainbow and music notes flowing out from the bells of their instruments. This mural was erased/painted over in the early 2000s.
• A mural dedicated to John Coltrane, similar in style to the "Wings" mural but much smaller in size, was painted on the wall a now-defunct laundry business located on the corner of King St. and Egan St. This mural (thought to be painted by Unmitigated Audacity Productions) 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 (probably by Phibs); this mural was painted over with a new design in Feb. 2008.