DAISY KOOKA MURAL

This mural is to be found in Bayview St, close to High St in Northcote, on top of the hill. I have previously shown photos of the same building (the Telstra Exchange) in 2013, when the walls had an Alice in Wonderland themed coverage. Alice doesn't live there any more, the tags and random graffiti destroyed those murals. Now in Bayview St we have this lovely kookaburra and some script in a rather angular (and illegible) graffiti font.

The street artist who created this is DVATE, whose webpage can be found here. On this page you can find more examples of the art as well as the graffiti text, self-summed up as: "...Developed and varies his own unique graffiti font and has ridiculously good photo-realistic skills..."

I have also shown another mural by DVATE on this blog and you can find it here.

This post is part of the Monday Mellow Yellows meme,
and also part of the Monday Murals meme,
and also part of the Blue Monday meme,
and also part of the Through my Lens meme,
and also part of the Seasons meme.

30ML CAFÉ

The volume of coffee in a standard shot of espresso is 30 mL. And this is what this small coffee shop is named after. It is tucked away in a Melbourne CBD laneway, 2 Presgrave Pl, Melbourne VIC 3004, and the coffee here is excellent - the competition being tough in Australia's coffee capital!

The café owners Rob and Vince are great guys and very hospitable and proud of their craft. The shop is small, dark and cosy and the "Spirit" coffee machine an amazing piece of engineering! It's well worth hunting out this place and enjoying the coffee - and not only. The mural gracing the wall is very Melbourne street-art!

This post is part of the Monday Mellow Yellows meme,
and also part of the Monday Murals meme,
and also part of the Blue Monday meme,
and also part of the Through my Lens meme,
and also part of the Seasons meme.

IN UNION LANE

Located in the heart of Melbourne’s retail precinct, Union Lane is something of an anomaly. There aren’t any of the usual bars, boutiques or cafes to entice visitors but they come nonetheless. What they flock to see is one of the city’s best known street art sites. Just about every square centimetre of wall is covered by a giant graffiti mural, totalling some 550 square metres.

Born out of a mentoring program launched by the City of Melbourne, the work was created by 50 young artists in late 2007. Since then, many more coats of paint and ephemeral graffiti have covered and recovered the walls. Although street art remains controversial in many quarters, its immediacy, verve and accessibility are hard to deny.

This is image is taken with an Olympus Pen-F camera that I was test driving. It has several cool features including some special "art" filters one example of which is sen here.

This post is part of the Friday Greens meme.

COLLINGWOOD MURAL BY GUS

The mural below is found in Collingwood, at the corner of Campbell and Perry Sts, as indicated by the red asterisk in the first image below. The artist is Gus Eagleton and the following artist statement is from his website, which statement I quote:

“As an artist, I take on the role of philosopher, with the idiotic intention of transcending incomprehensible conceptual barriers through visual representation. Endeavouring to understand life itself through images expressionistically within the conceived idea. Central to my latest body of work is an interest in the dichotomies of order and disorder in relation to people, and the tension between these poles that manifest in the urban landscape.

Statement: As economic growth fluxuates so too does infrastructure, infrastructure like a living organism both expands and deteriorates always one step behind society. Sky risers ascend and the long forgotten remnants of the old world deteriorate, acting as a cultural doppelganger shadowing cultural traits and trends. By constructing paintings I do not wish to undermine a deeper understanding of the history and life that is captured by the city around us. Instead I aim to portray actions placed together with life experience and personality within a location. Everyday we take action, while remaining on the move; we suggest fluency and ease in the city.

My paintings capture, in one moment, the crossing cars, the comings and goings of people, oblivious busyness. Allowing us a glimpse at aesthetic beauty and perhaps even a look into the human condition. My style is a direct relationship to me as a person, both precise and to the point as well as un-restricting and expressive. For me the street relates to life always changing it for better and for worse. I want to help the viewer to delve deeper to see the beauty that life has to offer. Casting a side the monotonous issues that arise to look at the bigger picture.”

This post is part of the Monday Murals meme,

and also part of the Blue Monday meme,

and also part of the Through my Lens meme,

and also part of the Seasons meme,

and also part of the Ruby Tuesday meme.

And just for fun if we invert the colours, here is what happens!

PLEA & ADNATE MURAL

Adnate is an artist that realises his portraits in spray paint. He has moved past his roots in graffiti, utilising the medium to carry his realist style into the fine art realm. Heavily influenced by the chiaroscuro of renaissance painters like Caravaggio, Adnate embraces portraiture like the masters of the XVI Century. Elevating graffiti art above the level of letter writing, Adnate’s subject matter and their subsequent status often belies the intent of his portraits.

His works are often cropped by evocative slices of vibrant colour, channelling a presence of character, much like a still life uses its background as a setting for detail and showing of fine brushstrokes. Adnate’s realism is highlighted by the use of what appears careless, but is frequently calculated blocks of vibrant colour. Adnate is still best known for the stunning portraits, typically of indigenous people, that can be found across Melbourne. This 2015 mural is found at the corner of Park and Station Sts, Carlton North and Adnate has collaborated with fellow artist Plea to create this beautiful portrait of a young Aboriginal boy.

Adnate's journey has involved spending time with indigenous communities in Arnhem Land, the Western Desert and the Northern Territory's central desert as well as Melbourne, photographing subjects that he would later paint. Beyond deepening Adnate's understanding of Aboriginal culture, he hopes that his art might trigger greater public engagement with indigenous culture.

This post is part of the Monday Mellow Yellows meme,

and also part of the Monday Murals meme,

and also part of the Blue Monday meme,

and also part of the Through my Lens meme,

and also part of the Seasons meme.

FITZROY RONE MURAL

Fitzroy is a suburb of Melbourne, Australia, 2 km north-east of Melbourne's Central Business District in the local government area of the City of Yarra. At the 2011 Census, Fitzroy had a population of 9,430. Planned as Melbourne's first suburb, it was later also one of the city's first areas to gain municipal status. It occupies Melbourne's smallest and most densely populated suburban area, just 100 ha, bordered by Alexandra Parade (north), Victoria Parade (south), Smith Street (east) and Nicholson Street.

It has a long associations with the working class and is currently inhabited by a wide variety of ethnicities and socio-economic groups and is known for a culture of bohemianism, being the main home of Melbourne's Fringe Festival. Its commercial heart is Brunswick Street, which is one of Melbourne's major retail, eating, and entertainment strips. It has undergone waves of both urban renewal and gentrification since the 1950s.

In response to past planning practices, much of the suburb is now a historic preservation precinct, with many individual buildings and streetscapes covered by Heritage Overlays. Its built environment is diverse and features some of the finest examples of Victorian era architecture in Melbourne. The most recent changes to Fitzroy are mandated by the Melbourne 2030 Metropolitan Strategy, in which both Brunswick Street and nearby Smith Street are designated for redevelopment as Activity centres. It was named after Sir Charles Augustus FitzRoy, the Governor of New South Wales from 1846 to 1855.

Melbourne born street art extraordinaire ‘Rone’ has become famous for his meticulous mural paintings of beautiful women. According to Rone, his work attempts to ‘locate the friction point between beauty and decay, the lavish and despoiled, creating an iconic form of urban art with a strongly emotional bent.’ You can find this particular masterpiece off Gertrude St. in Fitzroy.

This post is part of the Monday Mellow Yellows meme,
and also part of the Monday Murals meme,
and also part of the Through my Lens meme,
and also part of the Seasons meme.

MOONEE PONDS MOSAIC

Moonee Ponds is a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 7 km north-west from Melbourne's central business district. Its local government area is the City of Moonee Valley. At the 2011 Census, Moonee Ponds had a population of 13,532. Moonee Ponds is home to Queens Park and the Moonee Valley Racecourse.

Puckle Street is the main shopping street and there are many shops and cafes along its length. At its eastern end is Moonee Ponds Junction and at its western end is Moonee Ponds train station. It is a lively and colourful, old fashioned strip shopping centre.

The mosaic mural illustrated here is found in an arcade just off Puckle St and it was created in 1994 to commemorate the International Year of the Family. Local schoolchildren contributed to the creation of the mural.

This post is part of the Monday Murals meme,
and also part of the Blue Monday meme,
and also part of the Through my Lens meme,
and also part of the Seasons meme,
and also part of the Monday Mellow Yellows meme.

RONE & MAYO MURAL IN BRUNSWICK

Street artists Rone and Mayonaize (both from the Everfresh Studios in Melbourne, Australia) came together to decorate this large wall in Brunswick in the city’s inner north. Using only red and yellow, the artists created an eye-catching female portrait blended with a lively almost calligraphic decorative background to create a sunny backdrop to a newly created council urban park.

This post is part of the Monday Mellow Yellows meme,
and also part of the Monday Murals meme,
and also part of the Through my Lens meme.

I have blogged about Rone's work before here and here.

LALOR CERAMIC MURALS

In late December 2015, the final two of four murals were installed as part of the Peter Lalor Walkway Redevelopment and Graffiti Mural Project, in Lalor (an outer Northern suburb). Entitled ‘Lalor Conversation’, the four ceramic panels celebrate the rich history and development of Lalor and cover an area in Peter Lalor Walkway that was routinely tagged with graffiti. The City of Whittlesea partnered with the Victorian Government’s Community Crime Prevention Unit and the Lalor Traders Association in an effort to prevent future graffiti and improve the appearance and amenity of Peter Lalor Walk.

Artist Bern Emmerichs was commissioned to design and produce a mural that celebrates the rich cultural history and development of the suburb of Lalor. Ms Emmerichs is an accomplished ceramic artist and painter who has exhibited widely throughout Australia and overseas. Her work is held in major State and National collections. This work now connects the two sections of the shopping precinct and enhances the community feel of the area.

Mural panel one pays respect to the Wurundjeri Willum Clan, the Traditional Owners and first peoples of this land. It portrays William Barak and his sister Annie Borat, their culture and people, and their important role in the history of this place.

Panel two celebrates Peter Lalor, after whom the walkway and suburb are named. It honours his achievements at the Eureka Stockade and his contribution to democracy in Australia.

The third mural panel represents the German immigrant families of the 1850s who settled the land and established the original farms in Westgarthtown - the area now known as Lalor and Thomastown.

The fourth and final panel represents those who settled in the area through the assistance of the Peter Lalor Homebuilding Cooperative Society and the culture and diversity of the contemporary Lalor community.

This public art will bring a sense of history and pride to the community and will hopefully keep the Walkway a safe and vibrant space for years to come. The arts are an important ingredient in developing community wellbeing, place making and economic prosperity. I for one certainly appreciate these wonderful pieces of art and local history documentation and always spend sometime admiring them when I pass by.

This post is part of the Monday Mellow Yellows meme,

and also part of the Monday Murals meme,

and also part of the Blue Monday meme,

and also part of the Through my Lens meme.